This article highlights news of a city buying up .xxx domain names. Why would they do that? Well, they’re engaging in a form of search engine reputation management, actually.

To avoid any indecent Internet exposure, some of the city’s biggest institutions are snapping up corresponding domain names ending in “.xxx” to make sure they are never bought by or associated with adult entertainment websites.Mary Rodgers, who works in marketing and communications at the city, said the IT department had just purchased www.citywindsor.xxx on Tuesday.

“It’s to protect our reputation,” Rodgers said. “We’re not going to use it, but we own it.”

They won’t use it–and neither will anyone else.

When it comes to online review sites or negative online comments, businessmen too often want to dismiss them or ignore them.

Dealing With Real Complaints
Of course, if the negative comments are genuine, you need to look at your company. A bad comment can actually be a positive occurrence because it will alert you to any deficiencies that lurk within the organization. By quickly addressing the user’s concerns and taking care of these issues within the first 24 hours, you could prevent damaging effects to your business and enhance your reputation even further.

Real complaints should be taken seriously and dealt with appropriately. Resorting to legal suits is not the solution, though sometimes online reputation management is.

If you are a fan of animes or cartoons, that’s great. If you’re a fan of a television show or sports team, that’s great too. But apparently that is often associated with negative reactions when it comes to online interactions.

Photos that create good impressions online supposedly include wedding pictures, photos of you with “sensible looking friends” or photographs of you with children. While the report doesn’t explicitly state this, I’d imagine photos of you feeding animals and doing volunteer work would also make a good online impression.

This is nice and all. But try waltzing into a game forum with nothing but your “sensible friends”, small children or a wedding picture and see what that gets you.

There is a big difference between game forums and social networks, but the point is well-made.

Search engine reputation management is when an individual or business attempts to repair or protect the online reputation of another individual or business. It is an industry that has taken the Internet by storm over the last couple of years. Online reputations have become more and more important, and as they have done so, search engine reputation management has similarly grown in importance.

Online reputation management does not just remove negative links or comments that people have posted online–this is not as easy as you would think. In most cases, those links or comments cannot be removed. However, one thing that can be done is to promote positive content which will displace the more negative content in the search results. This is a desirable end, since most people get their information from search engine results pages these days.

Search engine reputation management is an industry that has grown by leaps and bounds over the last couple of years. Indeed, the industry is not that old, so whatever growth it has experienced over the last four or five years basically represents the extent of the industry’s growth overall.

Online reputation management is one industry, in theory, but in practice–it is a collection of niche industries.  Each of these niche industries serve a unique purpose and audience. For example, some companies serve medical professionals, athletes, small businessmen, international corporations, celebrities, etc. Pricing for services in each of these niche specialties will differ from the others. Of course, pricing will also differ according to the size of the project–preventative work will require less resources and time than fixing an utterly destroyed reputation.

These days there are many firms who are promising guaranteed results within a certain amount of time. This is generally a farce–the company cannot make such promises because it is virtually impossible to know how long the process will take. These companies very rarely are honest about the time line and if the “guarantee” is not as guaranteed as they make it sound, you would be very lucky to get your money back. Generally speaking, the flatrate services tend to be less than high quality.

Services that charge extremely high monthly rates are unlikely to deliver on their big promises. Similarly, unbelievably low prices are probably just that–unbelievable. Lastly, some firms will promise one time fees. These too tend to be less reputable firms with less-than-desirable results. Instead, you should seek reasonable monthly fees that are affordable for you. Expect professionally written content, good communication from the company, and mass market influence. These are the hallmarks of a great online reputation management firm. Do not believe pie-in-the-sky deals, because they will not satisfy your needs.

This is a good, unbiased, article about pricing issues in the online reputation management industry:
http://reputationhawk.com/industry-pricing.html

This is the Wikipedia article on online reputation management:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_reputation_management

This is an article that goes over some of the basics of the online reputation management industry–and even hits on pricing.
http://www.airforcetimes.com/offduty/technology/offduty-protecting-your-online-image-062711/

A bad reputation is good? Not exactly. This article suggests that a bad reputation is more likely to get you “noticed”, but that does not mean you get noticed in a good way. It’s intuitively true, too, think of Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy, whose face can you picture? They’re both immensely popular golfers, but Tiger is now famous for extracurricular activities outside of golf.

Having a bad reputation may not be desirable, but it does make you more likely to be seen — literally. A new study finds that, all other things being equal, people are more likely to pay attention to faces that have been associated with negative gossip than those with neutral or positive associations.

I assure you, the same thing applies to names and negativity. People remember when they read something negative about a CEO, but they forget all about the CEO who donates a million dollars to this or that charity. The article, cited above and linked here,  is well worth reading, both for online reputation management reasons and others.

More and more companies are becoming more comfortable with the idea that they must digitize their venture if they want it to remain relevant and not lose market share to online ventures. J.C. Penny seems to have recognized this fact–they recently moved their entire catalog to Facebook. They are the first major company to do so, and it could prove to be a revolutionary move.

“The value of Facebook and other social media sites to retailers is greater than previously thought,” stated ecommerce consultant John Lawson, reporting on a recent survey conducted by social media marketing company Media Logic. “Out of 100 retailers participating in the study, all of them have seen tremendous growth on their respective Facebook pages,” Lawson said.

Certainly social shopping is becoming less important as the Internet becomes more so. It is hard to imagine the idea that shopping would ever become a completely online experience, but that is no doubt where the industry is headed. If it is, JC Penny can claim to have gotten out ahead of the trend.

Search Engine Reputation Management is a tactic that is used to tamp down negative content in search results and improve online reputations. The standard idea is to create a lot of positive content and get it to rank highly in search results by increasing the traffic to, and influence of, the link. However, this does not always work. Often the other pages are simply ranked too highly or the search engine likes them for some inane reason.

One way to get around this problem is to check with the registrar and see if they have broken any of the terms and conditions with the company where the website is registered. They could also be spamming Google using SEO tactics which are frowned upon by Google.

Of course, this is only mentioned in order to highlight the idea that traditional search engine reputation management tactics are not the only ones that can be used, though they are certainly the most advisable methods.

One of the problems with reputation management is that it can be incredibly technically confusing. It is not a subject which people can easily tackle themselves because they often do not have the necessary knowledge about the Internet, search engines, backlinking, etc. So a “do it yourself” solution is often ruled out. However, this is not necessarily a standard that is going to remain. A look at this article shows that it can be done, though the “simplification” really isn’t as simple as it seems.

Listening to what is being said about you or your business online has emerged as a critical part of a company’s reputation management strategy. The multitude of social channels and communication technology enables customers to comment and feed back on experiences, products and services every time they interact with your brand, regardless of their location or the time of day.

The article goes on to detail a number of free tools that can be used to monitor online reputation management problems. Tools named include Google Alerts, Yahoo pipes, Boardreader, Blogpulse, and Social Mention. Paid for services that are mentioned include Brandwatch, Radian 6, Scoutlabs, Attensity360, and BuzzDing.

This article at the Telegraph is a wonderful exposition of the difficulties of online reputation. While people should not believe everything they read on the Internet, often they do. The article summarizes some of the most important parts very succinctly and gives people a glimpse into why reputation management services are so incredibly important.

Think about online recommendations and reputation: that is, checking out people you might like to hire and researching businesses you might like to build relationships with. If anything, hasn’t the internet made both tasks much more difficult?

Take Yelp. Even casual users of the web are by now familiar with the appalling reputation of Yelp’s anonymised business reviews, which have enabled bitter ex-employees, their identity shrouded by the reviews site, to destroy businesses. Anyone with a grudge can leave a nasty smear against a restaurant’s reputation. As for business services, there’s really nowhere to go besides expensive due diligence services like Kroll and nosing around credit agencies and Companies House.

The author points out that people widely recognize online reviewing websites as a place for individuals to take cheap shots at businesses. The general rule applies similarly to most review websites and to the idea that you can just Google someone and instantly know their reputation.

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