Reputation Management Firms

I came across a new website that lists almost all Reputation Management Firms and allows users to post a review about the companies listed. The website features about 50 or so Reputation Management Companies and the list is surely to grow as the industry grows. It appears the site was just created over the holidays, most likely by a reputation management company. Either Way it is a good idea to have a review site for this industry, there is a lack of reviews online about Reputation Management Companies.

If you are in the reputation management industry or want to review a reputation management company, check out the site here: http://www.iReputationReviews.com

There is a company called Reputation Armor (ReputationArmor.com) that specializes in manipulating the search engines in your favor.  Reputation Armor is one of the leading online reputation management firms that can help protect, repair, and build your online reputation.

No company is immune to getting negative comments or complaints online. Some of the largest brands in the world have negative information that appears high on Google search results.  A great example of how a 1 website or negative entry can tarnish your online reputation is the website PayPalSucks.com. This website ranks in the top 10 results on the first page of Google when you search the term “PayPal”. There are also dozens of other online negatives that appear when you search for “paypal” online.

The point is no company is perfect and every company has someone out there that does not like them.  In some cases people go far out of their way and invest a lot of time to ruin another company’s online image. Having negative information online about your business is not the end of the world and it can be corrected or at least made less damaging.

The Reputation Armor solution is to usually bury these negative items deeper within search results. By pushing negative comments and mentions of your company deeper within search results you will regain your positive image. The fact is only a small portion of internet users go past the first 2 pages of Google when they search for something or someone. If you can maneuver the negative links to go further down and the positive links up, then you have accomplished the most important feat of reputation management.

Do you need reputation protection?

The best way to view your online reputation as potential clients will is to simply search your name or company name on Google. See what shows up on the first 2 pages of Google, if there are negative mentions of your business that might make a potential client think twice about doing business with you, then you may need reputation management help.

Reputation Armor is a company that can assist you with protecting your online images and repairing your online reputation.  For more information on Reputation Armor and the services they offer visit them online here: Reputation Management

Google endorses reputation management and tells people “Publish positive content about yourself” and “get stuff that you want people to see to outperform the stuff you don’t want them to see.” This has always been the foundation of a reputation management campaign.

The advice is basic: Create a Google Profile (free and easy also not effective for pushing down stuff). Ask happy customers to review your business online (may create more negative items). *Publish positive content about yourself (*this is the good advice is our opinion).

It is motivating to see Google offering tips on how to “get stuff that you want people to see to outperform the stuff you don’t want them to see.” Reputation management can sometimes be a controversial issue - some people think it’s disreputable to create and optimize content for the express purpose of displacing negative content surreptitiously. Google’s endorsing it in today’s blog post, and offering suggestions for how to make it happen.

Google seems to be trying to do some preventative customer service here also. You can visualize the quantity of emails (and maybe phone calls) Google gets from businesses and individuals who are displeased about what they see when they Google themselves. The blog post by Google basically says, would you stop asking us to clean up the search results you don’t like about yourself?

“Rather than immediately contacting Google, it’s important to first remove it from the site where it’s being published. Google doesn’t own the Internet; our search results simply reflect what’s already out there on the web.”

Not only is Google possibly trying to slim down the amount of email and phone requests but maybe they are also attempting to prevent any future law suits files against them for results they display.

In closing it seems that Google has endorsed reputation management and using reputation management companies to help you gain control of what people see about you.

With the arrival of online tools that make it easy to share information, meet new people and keep in touch more rapidly than ever; online reputation has taken on a dual facet. Individuals and businesses no longer have to be troubled about their reputation in true life but in the virtual planet as well, making it two times as hard to keep up with what’s being said. There are a few ways that you can work to manage your online reputation. The resources listed below offer tips and tools to make it easier to track, control and manage your online reputation so you stay on top and in control of your personal and professional image.

Reputation Management Tips

Here are some general tips when managing your online reputation.

1. Create official online profiles. Don’t let just anyone talk about you online. Create your own profiles and websites complete with the type of information you really want to be available online about you.
2. Check what people are saying about you online. Whether good or bad you can do yourself a kindness by finding out what is being said about you online. Use some of the tools mentioned further down in this article to stay in the loop.
3. Stay on the ball. Don’t get sluggish about monitoring your reputation. If necessary, perform weekly checks to see if there’s any information about you that could possible be harmful.
4. Google yourself. The easiest method to find out where you or your company’s online reputation stands is to Google (search) yourself. See what kind of results pop up first. If they aren’t what they’d like them to be, you’ve got some work to do.
5. Presume everything can get on the web. Equally in your personal and professional life, what you say online and off can come back to bite you. Be safe and assume any emails, conversations or photos out there can eventually end up on the Web.
6. Select your words carefully. If you are blogging, running a website or just have a social media profile, be cautious what you post. Unless you’re looking for controversy what you say may cause you tribulations in the future.
7. Know your weakness. If you know your business has a particular weakness or are just familiar with your tendency for getting untamed on the weekend, keep this in mind and have it as your top priority for checking on your online reputation.
8. Protect yourself from hackers. This may look as if like it goes with no saying, but many people fall short to adequately securing their online information. Make sure yours is as safe and sound as it possibly can be.
9. Keep social networks private. One way to prevent snooping eyes is to keep your social networking profiles confidential to all except those you approve. This will keep informal viewers from seeing your information, good or bad.
10. Consider pseudonyms. If you do want to keep a blog or take on arguments on internet message boards, create a name for yourself to hide behind so you can’t be easily tracked.
11. Be proactive. Instead of waiting until you have a problem with your online reputation, stay ahead of the game. Search for what’s being said about you regularly so you’ll stay up-to-date.
12. Act quickly. If you do find something said or posted about you online that you feel could be particularly damaging to you, take action immediately. Whether it’s your friend posting photos from your bachelor nigh out or someone you don’t know slandering your business, taking care of it more rapidly rather than later is best.
13. Keep your cool. You may be irritated at what someone has said about you online, but don’t let it illustrate. Keep your fury to yourself and off the internet where it can do more damage than good.

Articles

Here are some good quality articles about reputation management that are nice reads….

1. Protect Your Online Reputation: This article from SEO Chat lays out some basics for monitoring and protecting your online reputation.
2. Ten Tactics That Could Save Your Online Reputation: The CEO of Trakur gives some great advice in this Mashable article on how your company can avoid reputation meltdown.
3. How to Manage Your Online Reputation: This article goes through a number of tools and how to use them to keep your reputation intact.
4. Social Networks Become Powerful Tool in Online Reputation Management: Find out how social networks are playing a bigger role than ever in online reputation from this short article.
5. How to Create Online Reputation Tools for Your Brand: Worried about the online component of your company’s brand? This article gives some advice on creating custom tools to monitor and control your online rep.
6. Online Reputation Handbook: You’ll find just about everything you ever wanted to know about online reputation in this helpful handbook.
7. Manage Your Online Reputation: Lifehacker gives some great tips and pointers, as well as links to tools that can help you get control of your reputation.
8. Free Online Reputation Management Beginner’s Guide: If you’ve never done much with online reputation before, or haven’t even considered it, check out this business-geared article.
9. How To Protect, Fix Your Online Reputation: From keeping problems from arising to fixing them when they do, this article is full of helpful advice.
10. Using Social Media to Manage Online Reputation: Find out how social media can be a help, not just a hindrance, to online reputation.
11. Basics of Online Reputation Management: Here you’ll learn the basics of getting your online reputation in order.
12. Managing Your Reputation Online: Technology Review provides this informative article that can help you understand and take action when it comes to your virtual reputation.
13. Online Reputation Management for Individuals: Online reputation isn’t just a concern for businesses, and this article explains how individuals can keep their name in good standing as well.

Websites and Blogs

These sites are dedicated to helping you keep an eye on and manage online reputation, providing the basics, suggestions for security, and much more.

1. Online Reputation: This site has articles on everything from brand reputation management to monitoring your reputation online.
2. The Reputation Blog: Business owners and leaders can take advantage of the advice offered by this blog.
3. Reputation Advisor: Here you’ll find advice and articles that provide essential information on keeping your business’ rep and your own looking good.
4. Reputation Management: From information on slander protection to posts about using search engines to monitor your reputation this blog is full of great info and insight.
5. CopyBrighter: Get some new insights into online reputation management and social media from this blog.
6. StepRepBlog: Find out just what social reputation is or get tips on connecting positively with customers from this site.
7. OnlineReputation.com: This site provides more in-depth explanations on how to use reputation tracking software, advice on building a solid online rep, and much more.

Personal Identity

These tools can help you manage your numerous online profiles, monitor your personal reputation and more.

1. ClaimID: Check out this program that uses OpenID to manage your personal identity over several sites, meaning you only have to remember the password for one, not numerous ones.
2. FindMeOn: Want to connect your identity over several sites? FindMeOn lets you do that while keeping your information private and secure.
3. FreeYourID: Make maintaining your online identity easy, with this tool that bases it directly on your name.
4. Garlik: If you’re worried that your identity may be more than marred and straight out stolen, give this tool a try. You’ll be able to search for mentions of you on the web that might involve identity theft.
5. myOpenID: Don’t worry about having multiple logins with this OpenID site.
6. SpyShakers: Try this tool to get access to any of your profile passwords remotely. It specializes in protecting your information from spyware.
7. TypeKey: TypeKey allows you to integrate your blog into your OpenID, allowing you to manage pretty much everything with one main profile.
8. Realmee: Here you can create a personal profile that will allow you to more easily control what others can see of you online.
9. LookUpPage: Want to control what people find when they search for you? This site helps out, by giving you a central page that comes up at the top when your name is searched for.
10. MonitorThis: Try out this site to monitor and track keywords over multiple search engines, giving you clues about who’s talking about you.

Professional Identity

Keep your business’ name out of the mud by protecting it with these helpful tools.

1. Trust-Index: Find out how well your business is trusted with this tool.
2. Google Alerts: With Google Alerts you can get email updates of the latest google results based on your name or other topic of your choosing.
3. BoardTracker: Whether you post on boards yourself or want to see if anyone else is talking about you, this tool makes it easy to filter to threads.
4. Vanno: Get an online reputation the democratic way, with this site that allows others to vote on the stories, videos and blogs about your company.
5. Serph: Use this search tool to look up your company and find out just what kind of buzz is going around the web about your company.
6. Searchles: This social search engine can help you keep up with the news out about your business.
7. Omgili: Search through the numerous forums out there to find out what people are saying about you using this helpful tool.
8. BoardReader: This tool is especially useful, allowing users to search through forums, videos, Twitter conversations, IMDB and more.
9. Joongel: Zoom in on the type of media you’d like to search with this online tool. Choose from videos, photos, shopping sites, and more.
10. Techrigy: This company makes it easier and simpler to monitor your business’ reputation online.
11. Keotag: Match blogs with tags that reflect talk about your business or related topics using this tool.
12. UpdatePatrol: This tool makes it easy to watch websites for updates and changes, which can sometimes be useful when you want to know what a particular site is saying about you.
13. BrandsEye: Hook up with this company to get stats and other information on where your business or blog reputation stands online.

Blog Tools

With the great proliferation of blogs out there, it’s worth your time to keep track of what’s being said about you on them. These tools make it easy and convenient to do just that.

1. Zuula: If you want to get posts just from blogs, try out this search engine. Users can also limit results to photos or videos.
2. SezWho: Follow who’s important in the blogging world and what they may be saying about you with this tool. Also useful to find out where your personal blog may stand.
3. Technorati: Whether you’re blogging personally or professionally, listing your blog with Technorati can be a big help in managing your online reputation. You’ll get updates whenever someone links to your blog so you can keep tabs on what people are saying about you or your business.
4. BackType: BackType is a service that lets you find, follow, and share comments from across the Web, allowing you to keep track of where you’ve been and what you’ve said on blogs.
5. TweetBeep: TweetBeep will let you keep track of conversations on Twitter than mention you or your business or anything else you’d like to track.
6. co.mments: When you sign up for an account with this site you’ll be able to track comments and conversations that can influence your online reputation.
7. Blogpulse: Keep your finger on the pulse of what’s going on in the blogging world, especially in relation to your business using the tools offered on this site.
8. Trendpedia: For businesses, this can be a valuable tool to track when and what your business is getting attention for and how you’re doing compared to your competitors.
9. Twist: Twist allows users to compare mentions of several different topics and view recent tweets about each one, making it easy to track info about businesses.
10. monitter: This tool lets you do much the same as Twist, but you can monitor topics in real-time or by geographic region.
11. Buzzlogic: Track buzz in the blogging world with this site, and find out just who’s word matters when it comes to blogs.

Profile Management

These tools make it easier to keep track of your social networking profiles and your online reputation in turn.

1. Comwat: Use Comwat to organize your social networking profiles into one so that its easier for others to find and easier to control what they see.
2. onXiam: Here you can establish a central online identity, use this identity to link up all your other sites, and even promote this new online location as well.
3. OtherEgo: Show off everything that you’re involved in on the net through this centralized site.
4. Zoolit: Check out this landing page service that makes it super easy to manage all the social networks you’ve been using.
5. Venyo: From lengthy blogs to simple comments, this site allows you to access everything you’ve done online, building up a trustworthy reputation at the same time.
6. ProfileMat: Pull all your existing online profiles together into a “mat” and allow users to comment on this new singular profile instead.
7. SimplifID: This site allows users to organize the online world by creating one central place you can access your blogs, social networking sites and more, allowing you to categorize it by type of viewer.
8. SocialURL: Here you can connect all your online identities by linking your social networking profiles to one URL.
9. ProfileBuilder: Want to create a professional looking profile using material from your existing social networks? This site lets you do just that, keeping or blocking the elements you choose and giving you a super useful home page to visit.

Managing Your Reputation

These tools allow you to hunt down what’s being said about you and find out just what others think of you or your business.

1. Naymz: Give this site a try to get feedback from people you’ve worked with, customers and friends.
2. Rapleaf: Here you can look up your personal or professional reputation, rate other people and businesses and get your own ratings.
3. RepVine: Using a search engine is the easiest way for people who want to know about you to find out more. This site helps you to manage what they find when they do this.
4. Keotag: Manage the blogsphere with this site that allows users to find tagged blog posts over several blog search engines.
5. TrustPl.us: Are you trustworthy? This site works by analyzing your or more like your business’ trust scores and giving you a ranking.
6. ReputationArmor: If you’ve found information about yourself online that’s less than true or extremely damaging to you, try out the services of this company that helps you get things said about you online removed.
7. FriendFeed: Whether you want to keep up with what your friends are looking at or keep up with what’s being said about you personally, this site is a useful tool.
8. Social Media Fire Hose: This accommodating tool tracks your name, brand or product across sites like Digg, FriendFeed and others that specialize in social media.
9. Trackur: If you’re willing to shell out for a little help monitoring your reputation, Trackur is a grand choice with tools that will search through all kinds of sites from social media to video.
10. Radian6: This tool makes it easier to monitor social media, frequently to the benefit of businesses who can use the information to their benefit to build better reputations and products.
11. Cision: For a fee, this tool can help you keep an eye on “100 million blogs, tens of thousands of online forums, and over 450 leading rich media sites.”
12. Web of Trust: Make certain your website is considered trusted by joining up with this site. After all, no one wants to be associated with a dangerous site- it’s just bad for business.

General Tools

If you haven’t already, bookmark these sites which can be a big help in maintaining your reputation optimistically online.

1. Digg: Check out Digg often to see if anyone has submitted stories about your or your business.
2. Reddit: comparable to Digg, this site will allow you to see how much interest there is you on the Web.
3. delicious: This social bookmarking site is a excellent place to see if your webpage or information about you or your business is being passed around by others.
4. Flickr: Think there may be some less-than-impressive photos of you out there? Trying searching this photo site to see if you come up.
5. Facebook: Facebook can be a great place to network, just make certain you keep your profile free from things you wouldn’t want spread about you online.
6. MySpace: With millions of visitors, this popular social networking site can be a great place to get your and your business’ name out there.
7. LinkedIn: Here you can create a professional profile that will allow you to interact with others in your profession in a safe and positive manner.
8. Google: There’s no easier way to find out what your online reputation is than to do a simple Google search.
9. Rollyo: If you want a more customized option for searching, try out this great search engine that you can mold to your online reputation finding needs.
10. Furl: an additional social bookmarking site, here you can track who’s interested in your sites.
11. Twitter: Whether you want to communicate with others or follow the noise about you on the net, Twitter is an essential tool.
12. Wordpress: If you’re going to create a blog to be the face of you or your company, this site makes it easy to do so.

Free press release sites are a great way to get more exposure for your business and online press releases go hand in hand with SEO and Reputation Management.

In June we posted a small list of free press release sites. Here is a larger list of free press release sites that you might find useful. Enjoy!

bignews.biz

afly.com

afreego.com/PressReleases.php

business.pagerelease.com

postafreepressrelease.com

tennessee-press-release.com

myfreepr.com

express-press-release.com

newyork-press-release.com

pr-usa.net

washington-press-release.com

express-press-release.net

press-network.com

pressbox.com

seenation.com

newsalbum.com

mediasyndicate.com

ukprwire.com

presszoom.com

pressportal.co.za

promotionworld.com

PageRelease.com

free-press-release-center.info

pressexposure.com

speedypr.com

prwindow.com

newsblaster.com

clickpress.com

pressreleasespider.com

freepressreleases.co.uk

pressreleasecirculation.com

prurgent.com

prfocus.com

newdesignworld.com

pressmethod.com

information-online.com

pr2work.com

illinois-press-release.com

prcompass.com

freepressrelease.co.cc

free-news-release.com

bizeurope.com/pressrelease.htm

massachusetts-press-release.com

pressflow.co.uk

indiaprwire.com

pressmediawire.com

ecommwire.com

pressreleasepoint.com

pressrelease.com.np

softarea51.com

techprspider.com

prlog.org

openpr.com

ohio-press-release.com

pressbox.co.uk

exactrelease.com

businessportal24.com/en

dir.free-press-release.com

1888pressrelease.com

live-pr.com/en

free-press-release.com

i-newswire.com

prfriend.com

Enjoy the list and if you have any to share or have something to say please post a comment and let us all know!

Remove Complaints From Google Search Results

Almost every company experiences online complaints or negative reviews of some sort. The difference in these companies is how they react to online complaints. There are dozens of websites dedicated to hosting online complaints and user complaints for consumers. Below is a list of the top complaint and review sites. These websites create the most visible complaints found online.

RipOffReport.com:

RipOff Report is the #1 most visible complaint site online today. Rip off reports are a nightmare for individuals and business. Consumers flock to this complaint site in the millions per year and read, file, and comment on complaints. The website has a few flaws and the major one is, anyone can file a complaint about anyone they want without any verification and the website states they never remove complaints even if the person who filed it requests so.

There are many companies that offer to remove rip off reports. There is NO WAY to remove a rip off report completely 100% from the internet. The term remove rip off reports should say “remove rip off reports from the top of search results” this is usually the only effective remedy to “remove” a rip off report and most of the other online complaints.

Why does rip off report rank so high on Google and other search engines?

Rip Off Report ranks so well on search engines for many reasons. Rip Off Report was created about 10 years ago by the founder and current owner Ed Magedson. This old age makes rip off report rank better on search engines. A new website can take years to gain popularity like rip off report has. The online popularity and so many media mentions and places linking to rip off report also make the site rank well. Other factors include the fact that the content (complaints) is generated by users, Google favors user generated content. Also, the website has over 500,000 pages and tons of content which Google also likes. These are a few reasons why rip off report ranks well on Google and other search engines. And NO Google is not “in bed” with rip off report! Why would a 250 billion dollar company need to team up with such a site?

There are actually a lot of complaints and accusations about rip off report and the owner Ed Magedson online there are even website dedicated to “telling the truth” about how the website and owner are allegedly involved in some sort of crime. (I don’t judge).

Who can help me remove a rip off report complaint?

There are dozens of companies that offer the service of removing rip off reports and complaints. Some of them better than others from what I hear. I know of a couple that actually get good results. I am not going to recommend who to use but I will tell you that a good company that will get you true lasting results will not be cheap. You can expect to pay $1500-$25000.00 depending on your issues. I will say that the most popular companies are reputationarmor.com and reputation defenders.

ComplaintsBoard.com

This is another complaint portal that is rumored to be involved with ripoffreport.com. The website complaintsboard even had rip off reports LLC (Xcentric Ventures LLC) name on their terms of service for a long time (not anymore)

ComplaintsBoard from what I have heard will sometimes remove a complaint if you approach them in the correct manner. I do not know the manner in which you should. I would get a cease and desist and send it to them and threaten legal action or something that lets them know you mean business!

Complaintsboard.com hosts a lot of complaints and ranks well on search engines. One thing they have that I think is strange and a little shady on their part is the suspicious company section. This section appears to extract company names from rip off report and creates a page for them that invites you to complain or be the first to file a complaint. This is a little bit shady like I said.

Scam.com

This is a forum that is organized a little better than most I think. People can actually share details with each other in a chat like atmosphere. Scam.com flies a lot of ads and makes their money from Google adsense. Normal in my opinion… Scam.com does not rank as good as rip off report and others but it gets a lot of traffic.

Yelp.com

Yelp is a little more legit looking and seems to be more legit than most complaint sites but don’t overlook the fact that they are still a complaint portal in the form of reviews. I have seen some pretty nasty reviews on this site.

Yelp provides online local search capabilities for its visitors. A typical search includes what the user is seeking (e.g. a barber shop) and the location from which the search is to be performed, entered as a specific address, neighborhood, city/state combination, or zip code. Each business listing result contains a 5-point rating, reviews from other site visitors, and details such as the business address, hours, accessibility, and parking. Site visitors can aid in keeping the business listings up to date, with moderator approval, and business owners can directly update their own business’ listing information.

Listings and related content are organized by city and a multi-tier categorization system. Content and listings can also be discovered through categorized reviews or via Yelp member profiles and their review lists. Maps leveraging Google Maps show reviewed businesses to further aid in business discovery.

Yelp combines local reviews and social networking functionality to create a local online community. Adding social web functionality to user reviews creates a de-facto reputation system, whereby site visitors can see which contributing users are the most popular, respected, and prolific, how long each has been a member, and which have interests similar to theirs. Strong peer feedback mechanisms and the featured placement of popular reviews on the site and in local newsletters help motivate contributors. Yelp also applies a “First to Review” reward system to create a competition among contributing members, further motivating the creation of reviews and adding to the site’s business coverage.

The company strengthens the online community through off-line events at nightclubs, bars, restaurants, and cultural venues in various cities for its most prolific and loyal contributors named “Elite” members on the site. These members must provide a photo and their real name, be at least 21 years of age, and in return receive a special badge on their personalized page for every year they author a specific number of reviews. The concept is meant to indicate that the user is a trusted author of business reviews. The site also has a forum for online socialization and to discuss local businesses and events. A number of competitors emulating these Yelp concepts have failed or were acquired. Source: Wikipedia

That does it for the top complaint sites that you may want to remove complaints off of. There are many more but these are the most popular complaint sites online at the moment.

Remove Complaints With Online Reputation Management

Reputation Management is basically the same as reputation repair in most cases. There is a reactive and proactive approach to reputation management. Most companies and individuals use the reactive approach where they wait for a crisis or complaints to arise before thinking about reputation management. I recommend everyone in the business world use the proactive approach, this way you will be a few steps ahead when and if an online complaint or complaints to start haunt you and your business.

Reactive reputation management is usually a process in which you react to complaints by responding to them or making them less visible. Responding to online complaints by adding a comment or rebuttle to the complaint can and in most cases will make the complaint more visible. This happens because you basically add more content freshen up the page the complaint is on (Google likes this).

The most common method is to bury the complaint links within search results so they are not easily found by people that search for you online. Most reputation management companies use various techniques to displace complaint links (remove complaints) from search results. Some of the methods used are listed below:

Some Methods Used By Reputation Management Companies:

• - Buying all versions of your name/company names website like (yourname).com, .net, .org, .info, .tv, .us, and more. They also install blogs or mini websites with keyword rich content on the sites.
• - Creating blog accounts and social networking accounts for you or your business. They create dozens if not hundreds of these online profiles; some of them will rank well on Google and maybe dilute the negative information about you online.
• - Online press releases are used. There are several free press release distribution websites and some paid ones. Example: PRWeb.com - A press release will usually rank well on Google but not for long if you do not obtain some backlinks to the press release.
• - Even simply creating a user profile on some websites can create a high ranking page about you or your company. There are some sites like facebook for example that may rank well on Google for your name just by making an account using the name that has the complaint issue.
• - Online Articles. Online article sites can help push down negative complaint links off of the top search results. Write an article about your industry and stay on topic. Include your company name in the title. Example: Loan Savings Tip By ABC Company
• - Directories: Some online directories (Free and Paid) offer a great opportunity for you to get your name mentioned on Google results pretty fast. Sites like localadlinks are useful.
• - Paid blog reviews. Regardless of what any “seo company” say paid blog posts and paid blog reviews are very effective and useful for SEO and Reputation management. I would personally stay away from blogs that openly advertise they sell paid posts and reviews. Google frowns upon paid blog posts and paid reviews, they consider It selling links and PR. Also try to stay away from blogs that have casinos, adult related, illegal warez, and other objectionable material.

How long does Reputation Management take? How long does it take to remove complaints from the top?

A lot of people have the wrong idea about how long the Reputation Management process takes, and sometimes hire a company based off of how long they say It will take to remove complaints from the top of search engines. To remove a complaint from the top of search results takes time and sometimes then they are lying or are simply inexperienced. In my 8 years of working in this field have learned 1 thing to be true, if you are not willing to be patient with the reputation repair process you might as well just change your name or company name and start all over from scratch (not a likely option).

Remove Rip Off Reports

Online complaints are flooding the internet daily. Is your business one of the ones being listed on complaint sites like Rip Off Report? Rip Off Report (RipOffReport) is a controversial online complaint portal website that allows anyone to say almost anything about anyone without verifying that the information reported is true or accurate. Rip Off Report doesn’t even verify your identity as being real when you file a complaint.

Why does this spell disaster for online and traditional businesses? Well the simple fact is anyone can say what they want about you and what they say WILL show up high on Google and other search engines when they search for your name or company name.

Why do rip off report complaints rank so high on Google? Being in the reputation management industry and working with one of the leaders in the industry I see this question a lot and there are many answers to this question. A few factors that play a role in why rip off report ranks good on Google are as follows:

Rip Off Report has been online since 1998 (11 Years Old)
Rip Off Report has 400,000+ Pages Indexed On Google
Rip Off Report Has ½ Million Complaints Filed On Their Site
Ripoffreport  is one of the top 10000 sites in the world.
Over 300,000+ Page Views Per DAY = 9 Million Per Month!

The factors above and others make rip off report an authority site in Google’s world and it makes rip off report one of the most popular sites in the world. This is why when someone files a complaint, within 24 hours or less it will normally rank very high on Google.

If you have a rip off reports complaint about you or your business ranking high on Google when you search your name, then you better be prepared to DO WORK! Remove rip off reports with the help of a reputation management company. A reputation management firm will all tell you the same thing; there is no way to make rip off report take your complaint off of their website. I don’t care if you have a 6 figure legal budget to do it; you will most likely fail like the thousands of others in your shoes have.

What should you do? You should act fast, you should be patient, you should also be prepared to invest in repairing your online reputation, and you should hire a professional. A regular “SEO Firm” or web designer/developer will most likely fail at helping you. Find a company that specializes in Removing Online Complaints. The company I work with is ReputationArmor.com they have helped several clients remove rip off reports. Removing a rip off report can take 8-12 weeks in most cases and sometimes faster depending on the name of your company and how many results on Google about you are found.

This article is provided by ReputationArmor.com they can help you remove rip off reports. Call them at 1.888.358.2766 for help to remove complaints and rip off report links from Google’s top results.

Want tips on how to remove rip off reports? Post a comment/question and we will reply with the best answer possible!

Online Reputation Management Tips

Managing your online reputation is very important to all business. It doesn’t matter if you are an online “Internet Based” business or a traditional offline retail establishment. The internet can create success for you, or disaster. The worse thing you can do is ignore your online reputation and have the “It won’t happen to me” mind-set.

There are many types of internet complaints and negative items that can affect your online reputation. There are dozens of online complaint sites where consumers can file complaints against businesses.

Rip Of Reports:

The most popular complaint site is RipOffReport.com - Having a rip off report is a nightmare. Online complaints on Rip Off Report rank very high on search engines, especially Google. There are many tactics to “removing” a rip off report from the top of search results. It is nearly impossible to MAKE or FORCE rip off report to delete a complaint from their website. The best option is to hire a reputation management company to help you: remove rip off reports.

Remove Blog Complaints and Negative Blogs About You:

A growing problem is also blogs like BlogSpot/Blogger and other free blogging platforms like typepad.com and LiveJournal.com. Anyone can create a free account with them and start a blog that is merely a smear campaign blog against you. It can be hard to get these negative blogs removed. Many blogs like these gave a form or contact form you can use to report abuse. Below are a few popular sites and links to contact them. When you contact them let them know you mean business, but do it in a nice way. It is not the blog provider’s fault someone is pissed off at you.

• Blogger.com/Blogspot.com - Report a Terms of Service Violation.
• TypePad.com - here you can: report a Terms of Service violation.
• WordPress.com - contact WordPress Support to report a problem.
• LiveJournal.com - use the LiveJournal Report Abuse form whether you’re a LiveJournal user or not.

Those are just a few tips and resources on removing negative information from the internet. As always, being proactive when it comes to reputation management is always the best policy. If you do not piss people off, they should not complain about you or your company (In Most Cases). Great customer service will normally thwart online complaints.

Social Network Username Search & Protection

KnowEm checks the availability of your brand name, user name or vanity URL on 120 popular Social Media websites. This service is a neat Reputation Management Tool that all reputation conscious individuals should consider using.

A lot of people and business are at risk of becoming a victim of internet identity theft. This is where someone can pose as you on social networks and other username based websites like forums. Imagine if someone found “you” on MySpace or a similar social network and started chatting with “you” about private details, only to find out it really was not you. There are many risks when it comes to internet ID theft, most of the time the biggest risk is your online reputation. If someone was posing as you on a social network and started saying all types of damaging things on their account, people will think these are your words.

Protecting your online reputation is very important in today’s WWW.

The service that KnowEm offers lets you see who else is using your username on over 100 popular social networks.  They also offer to protect your name by registering accounts on these networks for you.

Another great service is the social network search engine optimized profile creation service that iPorfileMaker.com offers. They create full profiles with your custom content. This service is geared toward reputation repair and includes the identity protection as well.

Google Profiles Looking Weak To Me!

I recently entertained the idea of creating a Google Profile for myself and went through the process and decided to not use it. Why? Well, it did not have many feature that were up to my expectations, at least from Google. As far as reputation management goes, it will make a 1st page listing at the very bottom of the results page when someone searches your name. I think that is they really want to lure users in and entice them to use Google Profiles they should make the Profiles appear on the top of search results or within the search results like they do videos from time to time.

The #1 use of online profiles (As I See It) is for reputation management and reputation repair. The Google Profile offers very little in my opinion when dealing with reputation repair.

Sure, it is free and you might as well make a profile with them if you are actively repairing  your reputation. The service has a few basic feature and none that really excite me. Here are the features as listed on Google’s site:

1. Receive messages. Enable the ‘Send a message’ feature to allow anyone with a Google Account to email you without revealing your email address.

2. Add photos. Enhance your profile by embedding photos from Flickr or Picasa.

3. Create a page about you. Write a short bio in the About me tab, reveal your superpower, and tell people what you still can’t find using Google.

4. Add your contact information. Share your information with your friends and family, so they always have the most up-to-date information. You control who sees it.

4. Add links to your other profiles and sites. Make it easier for friends to see your other content on the Web. You can link to Google content, including your Blogger blog, public Picasa Web Albums and Google Reader shared items as well as other pages on the Web such as Twitter, MySpace, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

5. Show your location. ‘My places’ includes all the cities you’ve entered on your profile. Your current location and where you’ve lived are displayed on a map.  

The best feature above in my opinion is the ability to link up to your other profiles like Twitter, faceBook, MySpace, and LinkedIn. I guess Google Profiles are not for me. I am certain many people will find a good use for them. If Google adds more visibility features to the profiles I will jump on board also.

What do you think about Google Profiles Service? Let us all know by posting a comment. Google if you read this will you please let us know if new feature may be on the way?