To successfully defend your online reputation, it is necessary that you remove any negative web page found on the internet. If you find this difficult you have no choice but to turn aggressive.
Google always aims at showing its users the most relevant web content against their search queries. This can at times go against you.
A negative blog post or one-star Yelp review may suddenly appear in the first page of Google’s search results as your homepage or social media profile.
But the redeeming feature is Google is quite considerate. Google has published recommendations and guidelines for anyone that finds his/her search results not favorable.
Google’s Webmaster Tools stipulate “If you can’t get the content removed from the original site, you probably won’t be able to completely remove it from Google’s search results, either. Instead, you can try to reduce its visibility in the search results by proactively publishing, positive information about your business”.
Google allows you to remove a negative web page from its search results. If your attempts fail, it advocates that you proactively publish positive results so that all negative comments will become less visible or even obscure. But the fact remains that you will have to understand its search algorithm and its webmaster guidelines.
It is your responsibility to conduct a periodic Google audit. Your initial audit may cover the first 30or 40 results that are shown when you Google your or your company/brand name.
You should thereafter conduct a fresh Google audit on alternate days for the next two or three weeks. You can finally settle for weekly audits and make that your normal schedule. This is the well defined procedure to ensure that no attack on your reputation ranks within the first three pages.
Should you see any damaging comment appear in your audit, you should remain calm and tackle the issue patiently.
Google’s algorithm includes offer signals for freshness and diversity. The damaging comments may show up in the first three page results because the web content is fresh. But, Google also meantime assesses if it is worthy enough to retrain its high ranking.
Please optimize all web pages that you own or control and web pages that you can influence. If an opportunity is there, add a Superbrand link.
Design an infographic or create a video and consider paying more attention to your web content to enable it rank higher and well above the negative web page.
There is no quick fix solution and it may take you quite some time to fully clean up your Google reputation and even thereafter you need to be constantly vigilant.