Online Reputation Management: I spy a bandwagon.
When individuals and companies working as web designers, web programmers, in public relations and search optimisation experts all begin to start dropping the same buzzwords and approach into their promotional material, you know there’s a bandwagon rolling…
The latest big bandwagon is Online Reputation Management which now appears in the famous ‘Web 2.0 Buzzword Bingo’. It’s popping up in hundreds of blogs highlighting how ‘if you Google Company X, the first page is full of people dumping on them‘ and invariably points to the author, or their associates as the expert who can fix the problem, and make this bad coverage disappear. A search in Google for the term ‘online reputation management’ finds over 4.6 million entries, and the sponsored ads are full of phrases like ‘Remove Bad Information’, ‘Fight Negative Publicity’ and ‘Defend Your Reputation’.
The organic listings within that search contain content from many seasoned Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) ad Search Engine Marketing (SEM) experts and there are a few respected and familiar names I recognise there like Lee Odden and Andy Beal, who has also written ‘Radically Transparent‘. However, there are also a lot of links to those who are clearly doing their best to game Google’s search results, and offer to do the same for you, in a fairly cynical ‘digital dirty laundry cleaner’ approach.
Now, that’s a fair enough business model, and good luck to those seeking to take advantage of a new opportunity… Read more…
