Reputation Repair & Management

Predictions made decades ago about the world becoming a global village have come true. Now more than ever before our reputations are our most valuable asset. Prospective employers, business associates and potential mates search each other online to learn more; usually soon after the first contact.

First go to a computer, preferably not your own computer, and put your name into Google, then Bing, then Yahoo search engines. You may want to use various versions of your name, a maiden name, or with and without your middle initial. Also if you are known by a nickname or shortened version of your name, plug those in as well. You can go as deep as you like on each of these search engines, I recommend that you search up to page three or four. 

What do you find? Good, bad, ugly? If a search comes up showing you dancing on the bar at your last party, you've got some work to do. Likewise, if you have ever been arrested, your face - the worst picture taken on the worst day of your life - your mugshot may appear on the very first page of Google. 

The permanence of the web creates a major branding challenge: once negative information is out there, it's difficult to remove. If you've created the questionable content you can delete it and -- eventually -- it will be removed from the caches of Google and other search engines If you don't control the content, the first thing to do is ask the person who does control the content to remove it. 

Create your own content and drive the bad stuff down in search engine rankings. No one, usually not even your worst enemy will bother to search past the first several pages on any of the search engines; most readers will stick to the first page or two. Creating a robust social media and online presence guarantees that the top results will be the ones you want people to see. Studies have shown that video, in particular, is prized by Google and will rank highly, so you might want to consider a video blog. Traditional blogs, because their content is updated frequently, are also search-engine-friendly. Creating profiles on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter also helps. 

There are certain reputation repair and management tasks that you can easily do yourself; and tasks that you may need help with. The basic principle is to bury negative information by providing positive information to take its place. Take a close look at the pages returned in a search. Would you want your grandmother or your nine year old daughter to see it? If the picture of you dancing on the bar is on your own Facebook page, take it down, or tighten your privacy settings. Follow suit with Twitter if you need to. If you don't have a Twitter account, create one to tweet positively and intelligently. Your Linkedin account is one of the vital parts of creating your positive online presence. You are creating your own personal brand, make sure the information that you share with the world positively reflects who you are. Making comments on popular blogs with well considered responses may also help build your online reputation. 

If information online is untrue and defamatory you may be able to have it taken down. Forcing a company to remove defamatory information may not be easy, but it is possible. Possibly you can file suit; contact the hosting company and request that the information be removed; or as we suggest -- bury negative information by piling positive information on top.

There are companies that specialize in reputation repair and management. Some of them do all the work for you, others do some of it; still others provide you the tools to repair and manage your reputation yourself. I recommend a company called Brand Yourself because I have had first hand experience with it, and know that it works. Click here or click the logo and try it yourself.

A pro se litigant, first recommended Brand Yourself to me. He had a criminal charge which had been dismissed, but it continued to haunt him. He is a chef in a competitive market, and was not being offered positions for which he was well qualified because of the negative information gleaned from the pre-employment pre-interview internet search. We can say that with confidence, because after he went through the Brand Yourself process, he began receiving the type of job offers he deserves.

In a second example, someone I know managed to bury two mug shots, by using the services provided in Brand Yourself. We know it works. Brand Yourself offers a free service, which works just fine, but you have to patient. You can upgrade to their paid service, and see your online reputation improve faster. Either way, you receive an alert every time anything changes when your name is searched.