Need to remove articles from Google Search Results ?  Contact us for a free and confidential consultation at info@webcide.com

 

Online Reputation Management consists of monitoring, improving and maintaining the publicly available online information about individuals, businesses and organizations. (We also describe it is as “managing your digital footprint.”) ORM began in the mid-‘90s, in response to the proliferation of online social media and the opportunities for anonymous commentary to be made about anyone—and for that commentary to remain online forever.

 

If you have had a court case or appear in the Daily Mail or other tabloid, we can help. Sometimes individuals also get mixed up in the negative attention their companies receive. We can remove negative news articles in the UK and internationally also.

 

There have been a number of recent court cases in favour of individuals which we take advantage of on your behalf. However, we use a range of techniques to remove the articles for your name that are more than just citing laws and are all approved by Google. Negative news articles are like cluster bombs, and the same story can be copied over to a number of newspapers.

 

We have a tried and tested method of tackling these articles and have managed to get them completely de-indexed from Google after a few months so they don’t appear for any search.

 

ORM helps you create and maintain an appropriate online image so that any attacks on your image are counterbalanced with more credible, factual information. It helps remove personal addresses and other data from public databases, also known as “people search” databases. It protects your online brand from being taken over and misused by third-parties.

 

We can take advantage of recent GDPR laws and use them for your benefit in a tried and tested way. We will work with every step of the way, in your corner until the job is done. We measure our results on pages 1 -3 of Google and what appears there, not stats or graphs. We have experience in using these laws to remove a range of personal content about individuals including their location, image and name from the internet.

 

Online reputation management is necessary because anyone can say anything online — anonymously, posing as an expert or as someone else. As mentioned before, bots also continuously locate and publish any data they locate from public records found on the Internet — including telephone directories and real estate ownership records filed at county courthouses.

The engineers who developed the Internet in the late ’60s and early ’70s didn’t foresee millions of people would be online now. As Internet use evolved, no mandatory laws or universal systems were enstated to authenticate credentials and identify Internet users.

Few laws are in place to regulate or address what is said and posted online. Currently, website operators have legal immunity over what is said and posted on their sites. That means they are not held responsible for it in a court of law (except, generally, in cases that constitute defamation).

 

Why? Because of the Communications Decency Act of 1996, a law regulating Internet content that has not been updated to meet the tremendous proliferation of online usage and proliferation of social media platforms.

According to Section 230 of the Act, “No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.”

 

Blogs often will correct information that is inaccurate (the name of your company, your title or position, etc), if you contact them in a neutral, reasonable manner – the way you would a newspaper editor.

 

If the information is on other platforms, such as an online gossip site, you have little control over it short of legal action (if you have grounds for an online defamation suit). In many cases, any request you email to the website administrator can be ignored, declined or posted online, as these actions are compliant under the U.S. government’s Communications Decency Act.

 

Alongside negative content removal, we have our own method of creating a positive asset network of websites that act as a shield on pages 1 and 2. These are not spammy websites or use spammy links, but are all high quality pages people expect to see and are highly reflective of the individual and their industry. We use the highest quality most popular websites and leverage them for your benefit and link to them using a powerful mix of article links, social signals and more. Find out more about our approach by contact us and we will put together a proposal for you.

 

The expungement, or erasure, of public records from news providers and other resources is an issue of growing debate. In “Erasing History,” an April 29, 2013 New York Times op-ed piece, Bill Keller addresses legal and related aspects of the topic.

 

When any computer connects to the Internet it is assigned a unique code of numbers called an IP address. Computers connect to the Internet through Internet Service Providers (ISPs), which register the IP addresses of users.

 

Identifying anonymous posters can be difficult, especially if they are hiding their identity. (They can accomplish that by using Tor, a free tool that conceals IP addresses.) While logs collected by the blog host might correlate posts to a particular IP address, the address may not necessarily reveal the poster with any level of certainty. Difficulties may arise from public network use, dynamic IP address assignment, access from private networks that translate addresses, or through the use of internet proxies which are used to “sanitize” identities. If the blog is maintained in a public forum the only way to access log information is through legal action.

 

Legal action can result in a court order and subpoena for an ISP to identify the IP address. Law enforcement agencies such as the FBI and police departments around the country obtain IP identification every day.

 

The field of forensic cyber investigations is also a growing one.  Such investigators often succeed in identifying anonymous posters and emailers through their IP addresses…going so far as to locate the users’ home addresses and other identifying information.

 

 

What to do when negative online information is accurate, or just appears to be so?

 

The first impulse of anyone who is the subject of negative online commentary is to get rid of it – especially if it is true. But even after multiple attempts to resolve the situation you may see it persist for months or years.

 

We find a content strategy is the best solution to counter significant negative information online about you or your company. Together with the right technology, SEO strategies and social media platforms, new content is the most effective tool in substantially diminishing the placement of negative online content.

 

Expanding your business across the globe is never easy. And misunderstanding the nuances embedded in other cultures only adds fuel to the fire. Everyone has access to your company’s policies, practices, and customer satisfaction rates. Because of that, staying on top of reviews and mentions is essential. Blog monitoring tools. Depending on whom you talk to, blogs (or weblogs) are either the savior or the blight of the information age.

 

Armed with just an Internet connection, individuals can post articles and attract an audience with minimal effort and no editorial oversight. Although businesses frequently use blogs to their advantage, it can be problematic when a blog turns negative on a brand. Online resources like Technorati and BlogPulse monitor blog content and alert you when your brand or products are mentioned.

 

Social media monitoring. Social media sites represent another double-edged sword for business owners. Effective PR strategies leverage the power of social media to communicate key messaging to targeted consumers. But that same power can do damage if you find yourself in the crosshairs of aggressive social networkers. Twitter Search and Monitter are real-time Twitter monitoring resources that give you a sense of the kinds of things that are being said about your business on social media sites. If you are a company that only likes to use the best software available and you are serious about social media monitoring, you'll want to check out Alterian SM2 social media monitoring software. Social media platforms have become a bit of a double-edged sword for businesses. In one sense, they’re essential for marketing your business and driving new traffic to your website and services. Alternatively, any bad press or bad reviews on social media can turn online crowds against you and cause significant reputational damage to your business. 

 

 

Just last year, the Red Hen restaurant in Lexington, VA, received thousands of negative online reviews within days after the owner asked press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders to leave. It also resulted in a ripple effect on the town’s local economy, forcing the city government to spend money on digital marketing to boost tourism in the wake of the controversy.

 

Online reputation management is a critical 21st-century competency. If you can't adequately deal with negative comments about your company on the Internet, you're in big trouble. These online reputation management tips will get you started on repairing a bad Internet reputation.

 

 

If you're a business owner you need to worry about your company's reputation on the Internet.

A single negative posting can quickly multiply and under the right circumstances, lead to a devastating PR scenario. Although you can't spend all your time surfing the Internet, the worst thing you can do is to stick your head in the sand and hope everyone posts happy, glowing comments about your business.

 

The damage went even further. Multiple restaurants by the same name and unconnected to the event also received negative social media attention as a result. 

 

Small businesses have some major watch-outs when it comes to social media: Not only can negative attention spread quickly on social media platforms, but you also need to protect your business from incidents of mistaken identity. The more prominent your business becomes, the more likely it is you’ll face claims related to plagiarism, copyright infringement, and privacy invasion.

 

Effective online reputation management begins by finding a way to accurately and efficiently monitor a range of web-based media. Affordable software and service providers exist to help you keep an eye on blogs, message boards, social media sites, websites, and even search engines.

When false or negative information about your company appears, the way to address it is by maximizing positive references to your brand. If you think about the online community as a crowd of people at a sporting event, the best way to counter a few "boos" is by increasing the number of people who are cheering.

 

 

How do you do that? The process can be complicated. But if you decide to tackle it on your own instead of outsourcing it to an online reputation management provider, here are a few suggestions to get you started.

 

Google Alerts. Google Alerts is a very popular tool for monitoring keyword mentions in news, web searches, blogs, and other web locations. After you set up a free account, alerts are sent by email according to your preferred frequency. Another popular search aggregator (a metasearch engine that collects results from many different search engines) is MonitorThis.

 

Message & discussion boards. Message boards are yet another area of concern for online reputation management. It's not unheard of for competitors to fabricate negative posts on message boards in an effort to unleash bad PR on a rival. Fortunately, resources like BoardTracker Forum Discussion Search let you monitor the comments made on popular message boards so that you have the ability to respond before negative messaging goes viral.

 

Here’s a fun number that describes how powerful online reviews are today. 2019 ORM Statistics show that 85% of people consider reviews when making a purchase. And, 30% of consumers are inclined to a business that answers their reviews.

 

If you haven't made any effort to optimize your website, that's the place to begin. In some cases, a small company may not even have a website yet still suffer from a negative online reputation. Whatever else you do make sure you have a high-quality website that appears at the top of the list of results when your brand is searched. One way to protect your business against the potential pitfalls of social media is through business insurance. 

 

 

The most common form of coverage will come through your commercial general liability policy. In most cases, a commercial general liability policy offers coverage for some claims related to advertising, such as libel. But there are notable exclusions, such as copyright claims.