The article linked below is an excellent analysis for hospitality industry professionals. Not only is it interesting, it’s one hundred percent true–social media and the openness of the Internet has allowed customers to share the good, the bad, and the ugly about hotels, motels, and whatever other hospitality industry businesses.

The proliferation of web 2.0 or user generates content (UGC) websites like Trip Advisor, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube etc. have empowered your guests to share their opinion about your hotel at the speed of thought and in front of millions of prospective guests. Travel review websites and social media platforms are also becoming more credible sources of research for potential guests. It’s not only your guests who are sharing their opinion online. Travel bloggers and self-proclaimed travel experts are writing about your hotel without you even knowing about it. Travelers trust other travelers. Online reviews are immediate, in real time and considered to be truthful.

There is a danger, of course, of search engine reputation management problems anytime you encounter a situation in which the Internet is so influential upon consumers.

http://www.hospitalitynet.org/news/154000320/4047517.search?query=online+reputation+management

As Yahoo announces that it expects its search results to transition to Bing within the next couple of months rather than next year, Google had its own announcement to make. It may not be as immediately impacting as Yahoo’s own announcement but the purchase of Metaweb could still hold a few indications for the future of Google search results at the very least.

Before we get on to that, though, the major implication of the Yahoo Bing integration is that if your site currently performs better or worse on Bing than it does on Google then you should expect similar results from the world’s 2nd largest search engine too. Yahoo has stated that if there are any problems with the integration then they will regress to the proposed date of next year.

Metaweb is a search engine of sorts but it’s more a semantic database of documents and information with complex relationships between entries than it is a keyword based search engine. It stores entries on more than 11 million people, places, companies, films, and songs and users are able to search for the listings themselves or the relationships that exist between some of these pieces of information.

You can search for a list of female models from Birmingham that have appeared in GQ magazine and the relational database will find that information and provide you with a full list. What does this mean for the future of search and SEO? Well, not a whole lot just yet but it does show Google’s continued commitment to leading the search engine wars.

One of the most consistent problems for online reputation management professionals is determining who to help, and who to let solve their own problems. Search engine reputation management professionals are basically public relations managers who work online–and like that industry, online reputation managers often have certain minimum standards that must be met.

For example: Few online reputation management professionals would take up O.J. Simpson’s cause in the aftermath of his famous murder trial and publicize him positively. Similarly, convicted criminals or corrupt politicians would find it hard to find online reputation management professionals who would take their cases without certain reassurances. Prospective clients in need of help just need to prove that they have been unfairly maligned online in order to convince online reputation management professionals to take their case. Of course, there are also always going to be professionals in the industry who accept any case, regardless of merit.