Reputation management has been considered an important part of business for decades, and it has recently come to the fore again thanks to the number of businesses and consumers that now use the Internet. What’s more, when we search for information about a company, product, or person, we are still more likely to use search engines than any other method of searching and finding information.

This combination makes it very important that we consider our search engine reputation. While the search engines themselves do not directly post a positive or negative spin on businesses or websites, they do display pages and websites that are relevant to specific search phrases. If, when people search for your business name, they find negative press at the top of the results they will not be inclined to deal with your or the company that you represent.

Search engine reputation management offers a means to bury any negative posts that appear in the results. Burying posts means consigning them to page 2 and beyond in Google and the other major search engines.

Ensuring that your site appears at the top of the results should be the first step. If you have your own blog then this should feature prominently too.

Following these personally owned sites, it is possible to have social networking profiles, articles, press releases, social bookmarks, and positive reviews feature in search results.

Search engine reputation management isn’t just about recovering from bad press either. It also means ensuring that when people do search for you or your company, they are faced with positive or informative results.