Anything online is pretty much fair game. Anyone can take potshots on anyone just for fun, and get it posted as the number one result. In fact, a couple of years ago, searching for “miserable failure” online resulted in the Wikipedia entry of the former President George W. Bush as the number one result. Good thing that Google was able to defuse that bomb. This just goes to show that in the hands of a malicious competitor, the efforts you’ve been making in spicing up your e-commerce site and ramping up your SEO online marketing will not be enough. You will also have to be vigilant against threats on your person or company through reputation management online.
As if that’s not enough challenge for the site owner, your product’s reputation management online is open to slander and libel–whether it’s from legit competitors or just internet savvy nerds who want to see reputations fall.
It’s true that the competition is getting fiercer with all companies in virtually any industry vying to land the precious first result of any search engine. Just how dirty you want to play the game depends on you. You can try to push yourself up the ranks. You can also decide to push negative reviews of the products up the ranks as well. This is why it is important to do reputation management to protect your image online.
Getting to the #1 spot is hard. Protecting yourself from defamation of character is much, much harder. Are you a victim of predatory online practices? Here are some things that you can do to manage online reputation.
First, you can choose to ignore the negative reviews. People will forget about it tomorrow, right? Let’s just hope that all the negativity will eventually blow over. Another option is to send a polite email or formal letter to the website owner to take down the offensive material. Third, you can bring the offending parties to court for slander. Get immediate relief with a court order to take down the site and seek compensatory damages. Lastly, you can consider a more creative online reputation management tactic that will push the offensive sites down 4-10 pages in the search engine results through reputation online repair services.
Clearly, the first option won’t get your anywhere and the second is a long shot. But it’s worth a try as it will cost you nothing to request the site owner to be more scrupulous and discerning in publishing defamation slander. You can always threaten costly litigation against them as part of your polite demand.
Going to court is often the last resort for anyone with a grievance but it can be time consuming and expensive without a guarantee that the court will resolve the case in your favor. In the meantime, if no injunctive relief takes place to remove the offending content, the damage to your online reputation goes on until the case is resolved in your favor.
Nothing beats proactive and aggressive counter-action to neutralize malicious online slander. Brand protection is as much a basic marketing function as advertising and promotions, whether online or offline. Doing so online will often require the right SEO professionals to manage online reputation.
Get a no-obligation Wag the Dog Marketing Los Angeles, CA allegation cleanup repair analysis by calling us today at (800) 825-9500.