Online Reputation Repair – what is it and how does it work

Online Reputation Repair tools, services and timeframes

Building a great reputation takes hard work. But damaging a reputation only takes a negative article, blog post or review online. Whether this published negative report is true or false; you are impacted by it, you are judged by it. And it can be devastating, but online reputation repair services can ease the anguish and restore the damage.

What Online Reputation Repair Services Do

Online Reputation Repair or also called online reputation management is about repairing your online profile, the way you look when people Google you. Don’t know how you look on Google? Use our free analysis tool and find out. Our Online Reputation Repair services are mostly focused on suppression, rather than removal. We explained why suppression is often a better option to pursue than removal, but if you are unsure which strategy would be best for your case, feel free to contact us for a free consultation phone call.

With suppression, the goal is to convince Google that that the positive quality content is more relevant to your problem keywords than the negative search results. This process requires ongoing attention and how long it will take depends on a number of factors.

We cause unfavorable Google search results, for your name or brand, to lose their existing high rank, and replace it with positive content. In short; online reputation repair is about making you look much better in Google search results.

In some cases legal action to achieve removal is a better option to pursue. Our cyber crime department can assist with identification of your antagonist and our licensed private investigator can offer legal assistance.

What Successful Online Reputation Repair Looks Like

Throughout the years we have noticed the difference in what clients perceive as success. Some consider success when they have zero negative search results. But that doesn’t take into account what people searching for you online will consider a win. When you’re a psychiatrist, you’ll need to be showing your assets online. It’s not simply about deleting your past. Online reputation repair is not just about clean up but also positive brand promotion.

Others want the negative results to be suppressed to page 7 or further. While this would be ideal, it’s not always achievable. If your negative results are suppressed to page 2 of the search results, you have already reduced the exposure of the result by 87%. Our research has shown that results on page 1 get 92% of all traffic from the average search, while only 4.8% continue to page 2 of search results.

The further down your negative results rank, the fewer clicks it receives. According to the Advanced Web Ranking research data, on average, 71.33% of searches resulted in a page one Google organic click. Pages two and three get only 5.59% of the clicks. And, if you eventually successfully suppress a negative result onto the second page, an even greater number of users won’t click it or even see it.

How long Online Reputation Repair takes

The biggest myth and lie within the online reputation management industry is the claim that your negative results will be suppressed or even removed within a few weeks. Sounds familiar? We can’t warn you enough but: stay away from everyone who pitches that idea to you! That person is either lying to lure you in or using black-hat SEO techniques that in most cases result in penalties and bigger problems on the long run.

The truth is that online reputation repair takes time. Instead of a timeframe of weeks, you’re safer of thinking in timeframes of months – even though we have had cases with great results within a few weeks – but this is far from standard.

If you’re suffering from a damaged reputation, this is not what you probably want to hear. We understand. But we don’t want to create any false hope and unrealistic expectations.

With online reputation repair, there is no set timeframe. Even though Google recognizes changes in indexed sites and profiles between 2-6 weeks, the timeframe of success still depends on the type of case.

Every case is different, but generally, these are indicators of the severity of the case:

• Negative results that are recent are often harder to suppress than old results because Google recognizes the relevancy of current posts.
• Websites like RipOffReport and Yelp are harder to suppress than blogs, due to the domain authority Google gives them.
• Results that are shared and linked to other sites are harder to suppress than posts that are published and abandoned.
• How competitive your problem keyword is.

Of course, you’ll see case-studies with great, quick results. We have those cases as well. But don’t let them fool you. The reality is that the majority of cases often take a minimum of 2 months and can lead up to 8 months before any success.

Some people will see rapid changes in rankings and others will witness more measured shifts in search results. Regardless of the speed of initial changes in search engine rankings, the most important thing to do is to focus on the content and activity that you can control.

There is no way we, or any other online reputation management agency, can give you a guaranteed timeframe of success. There are simply too many influence factors.

Why Suppression is Often a Better Option Than Removal

Getting a negative search result removed from the search engine would be great, but this is very difficult and often very costly. Search engines approve only a small amount of removal requests. And the search engine is not even obligated to remove the result when you provide them a court order.

And even when the result is removed or de-indexed, there is still the chance of it resurfacing at a later stage.

This is why in our experience, in a lot of cases, the next best strategy is to suppress the negative search result. While this is a lengthy and challenging process as well, this strategy is long-term focused. Online reputation repair management builds a reputation buffer. By elevating positive and relevant search results above the negative results, you can build a buffer which significantly reduces the damage caused by these online attacks.

Unsure if it’s worth it? See the Return on Investment Impact here. 

Our Online Reputation Repair Tools

We try and eliminate all the negative content; but if we can’t, we attack its integrity using a range of advanced techniques and in-depth knowledge of how search engines work.

The tasks that we carry out in repairing your online reputation by managing your search suppression cases, include, but are not limited to the following:

1. We analyse your current search ranking position at the beginning of the case and decide on the best course of action as to what to do to make the situation better.
2. We reanalyse the situation from time to time, on an ongoing basis throughout the case.
3. We give you “to-do” type tasks; the things that we cannot do on your behalf, such as modifications to your own website, YouTube channel etc.
4. We create new content using your targeted search terms, in ways that the content can be amended if you are not happy with it, or if it needs updating in the future. Any accounts that we create include username and password access information, and we can provide that to you at the end of the case to take over.
5. The majority of the work that we do is involved in acquiring strategic, and effective backlinks from other website properties to the positive content that ranks beneath the target of negative results. The hope is that due to the backlinks and other work we do, the positive material will gain in Google ranking and in doing so begin to suppress the negative results.

Our Distinctions

Page1.me’s proprietary system of search suppression methods that are acceptable to Google’s “web spam” team; thus avoiding scrutiny appearances of “Black-Hat SEO” techniques which can lead to Google penalties. Google gives these penalties when SEO or Online Reputation Management (“ORM”) vendors, who promise almost immediate results, implement quick and “spammy” methods. These methods will give rapid results, but these unnatural changes are the indicators that Google looks for when giving penalties. Using black-hat methods almost always end badly and often makes things worse than had you done nothing.

Page1.me’s primary objective is to persuade Google that positive and neutral search results, ranking below the negative results, are more important and relevant, than the unfavorable search results that are damaging you or your business’ reputation.

This is achieved through our proprietary system’s algorithmic identification of high quality “donor sites”, whose administrators are sympathetic to the problems associated with online defamation. After that, we construct a robust matrix of both permanent and temporary back links to the lower ranking, desirable search results. In most cases, this causes the desirable links to float up through the search result pages to displace the negative results, which in turn causes the negatives to sink lower, and ultimately off page 1 of Google, if all goes well.

What we DON’T do

We don’t use spam, black-hat, false reviews, revenge or malice in any of our strategies. We also don’t serve any of the following industries: Pornography, prostitution, the occult, gambling, scams, human trafficking, illegal drugs, discount medicines, or any activities that undermine traditional family values.