| So your company has taken a hit from a couple of | | | | ways they create these sites. |
| bad mentions on the internet, and you've heard about | | | | One way is to create micro sites, or mini-websites or |
| Reputation Management companies that claim to fix | | | | web pages associated with your company's main |
| that. But with the internet such a huge and | | | | website and that oftentimes links to your company's |
| uncontrollable place, how could anyone do that? | | | | page. They use key words on that micro site that an |
| Reputation management companies manipulate the | | | | internet surfer might search for to bring them to your |
| internet, the very tool which brought about your | | | | company. For example, if your company deals with |
| negative company image, to turn the tables and place | | | | selling computers, they might create a micro site that |
| your company back in a better light. Their primary goal | | | | talks a lot about desktops, laptops, and other computer |
| is to remove or replace the damaging search engine | | | | terminology. |
| results with positive ones. | | | | Another strategy reputation management companies |
| One way they seek to do this is by contacting | | | | have is using those same sites that damaged your |
| websites with libelous material and asking them to | | | | reputation to improve it. They create blog posts and |
| remove it. Sometimes, this works. Other times, either | | | | use social networking sites, too. They might give you |
| sites will not remove the material, or the site is a | | | | more popular appeal by creating for you a Facebook |
| user-based, interactive site with millions of users that | | | | page or MySpace profile. Sometimes, they change the |
| are impossible to contact, such as Facebook or | | | | content on your company's Wikipedia page or, more |
| Twitter. | | | | frequently, create an entirely separate business |
| In the case that a reputation management company | | | | profile--one that only they can edit, not the whole |
| cannot remove the negative search engine results, | | | | world. |
| their next focus is to push those results so far down in | | | | Also, reputation management companies might create |
| the rankings that no potential customer will read it. | | | | press releases or promotional pictures and videos. |
| Studies show that there is less than a 10% chance | | | | With this flood of new, positive information about your |
| that people will look at search results beyond the third | | | | company, they then create a linking network, so that |
| page, so the goal is to get it on the fourth page or | | | | when someone visits one of the sites they have |
| lower, if possible. | | | | created, they can link to another site, then to another, |
| The reputation management company will work to | | | | then to another, giving the sites more traffic, more hits, |
| create a plethora of natural-looking, positive sites they | | | | and higher rankings in the search engine results. |
| work to get high in the rankings. Here are some of the | | | | And that's what they get paid to do. |