It may not be wholly possible to remove any negative content from the Internet but you can certainly try to minimize its reach and impact by using some simple,online reputation management and SEO (Search Engine Optimization) techniques to scrub negative perception online.
Before you start managing your online reputation, try to assess it. Type your name and the name of your business in the subject line of major search engines and view what they throw out. Also, set up search alerts for your name to help you better monitor what is written about you online.
If you find something unflattering or damaging,
ascertain if they are based on what you had posted earlier. For instance, photos from your Flickr account or any other sensitive information that you would rather keep private are showing up in search results. All you can do is to simply delete the photos or readjust your privacy settings.
Again, see if anybody is posting your personal information that could be misused by criminal elements. If someone posts your social security number, bank account number, credit card number or an image of your handwritten signature, search engines will take steps to remove it from search results. It will also request the site’s hosting company for deletion of that page.
Please remember that search engines usually like to rank one result per domain name per page.
Hence, create a profile on that news site using your full name. Use as many links as possible, and link to the profile from all of your other web properties.
Besides, if you want to make negative web pages appear lower in search results, you will need to create positive content of relevance to suppress or push the negative links down.
Profiles on social networks are indeed forceful tools for this purpose. For instance, sites like Facebook and Twitter often carry more SEO power than a single post or a personal blog.
However, with more and more user- generated content media and social media opportunities, there is the risk that negative posts can find themselves in the first page of search results.
As online reputation is critical, it is necessary to push the negative posts/comments to lower pages of search results. If you are not competent to do this, it is saner to hire a SEO expert to mange your online reputation using the right SEO techniques.
Your Turn:
What is your online reputation management strategy ? We’d love to hear your thoughts.