Search reputation-management

Mikkel deMib Svendsen • www.joyzone.dk • www.redzoneglobal.dk • mikkel@joyzone.dkMikkel deMib Svendsen • www.demib.com • mikkel@demib.com 1
The Art Of Search Reputation Management
Mikkel deMib Svendsen
Ninja SEO & Serial Entrepreneur
Mail: mikkel@demib.com
Phone: (+45) - 22 27 07 10
Blog: blog.demib.com
Twitter: demib
Strike Point
WebMasterRadio.fm (FREE)
www.webmasterradio.fm/International-Marketing/Strike-Point
DaveN & Mikkel deMib Svendsen
Monday at 21:00 CET
+2 MILLION
DOWNLOADS

Everyone have the right to speak
(free speech) ... But that doesn't
mean anyone actually have to
hear it ... 
If you can somehow promote the positive things said about
you and suppress the negative then off course you should!
... And that's exactly what you can do
with Search Reputation Management ...!

Two important Facts About Search
1. All people search!
Don’t fool yourself – more and more of your
prospects search too!
2. Search results form opinions!
What people find searching strongly
influence their opinions on the topic

How Can Bad Search Results Hurt You?
Consumers may not buy your products
Most often there are several brands or vendors to chose from
It will reduce the effectiveness of your branding campaigns
People search for brands, slogans & tag-lines used in large branding campaigns
If what they find contradict or make fun of your campaign they may not trust you
In a “worst case scenario” things may get worse much faster
People search when a plane crash – but what will they find? Are you (SEO-) ready for it?
In general: Negative results will undermine your brands!
Investors may not invest in your company
Companies may not want to take your investment ...!
Journalists may pick up on the bad stuff they find researching your market
You may not get the job (or date) you want

3 groups of strategies to fight free speech
Legal strategies
Most often negative sites are not actually doing anything illegal
Offending sites may not be in your jurisdiction
However, if it’s the right way to go – this may be your cheapest option
Paid strategies
Pay your way to limit the problems and emphasize the good stuff
Organic strategies
SEO on steroids ...
You can not expect to get rid of all the negative
things about you – but you can supress some
of it and promote the possitive things. You can
shift the ballance to the better

Never, ever, ever ever call your
lawyer as the first thing in a
reputation management case!
They often makes things worse!
and they have no clue about the possible options
(... like a bull in a china shop)
I
LAWYERS

Where do you start ...
It depends on what your goals are ...
Do you just want to better understand your reputation in search - in general ...
- and deal with it if necessary?
Have you already identified one really bad listing
you want to “neutralize”?
Do you want to protect an upcoming
branding campaign in search?
Do you want to prepare yourself
for a worst case scenario?

Steps to
Search
Reputation
Management

Step 1: Select Your Keywords
Focus on your brand-sensitive keywords
Keywords that is used to research you, other top-managers, brands and products
It takes an awful lot of work to do full scale analysis of keywords
If you have many keywords prioritize them in an A and a B list
Do not focus on search volumes – but on impact!
Keywords is the key
to all search marketing!

Step 2: Collect Search Result Data
Select the most used engines in your target market
Usually Google, Yahoo and Bing – but not always!
Search locally!
If you are not local use a local proxy
Use default (local) settings
Basically: Mimic your target users as close as possible when
collecting data!
Focus on top listings
Collect data from top 10, 20 or 30

Step 3: Rate Each Unique URL
1. Very negative (Rate: -1)
- the most negative pages you can imagine from independant parties
2. Negative (Rate: -2)
- negative pages
3. Neutral (Rate: 0)
- listings that are not about you
4. Positive (Rate: +1)
- posstive pages
5. Very positive (Rate: +2)
- the most posstive pages you can imagine from independant parties

Store the raw ratings for all your keywords

Use conversion and weighting scales
Read Bill Hunt & Mike Morans book:
Search Engine Marketing, Inc.
- for more suggestions on ranking scales
(Distribution of clicks by search ranking, page 165)

Collect additional data for each unique domain

Step 4: Analyze Each Keyword
Are the keyword competitive or not?
Are the top ranking websites very prominent
and well optimized for the keyword?
Or is it just the “best” there is?
What characterize the total result?
Mostly positive results with just a few negatives (2) and fewer very negatives (1)
Mostly negative and very negative results
Mostly neutral results – unrelated and unprotected results
Only positive and neutral results ... 

Step 5: Analyze The Negative Websites
How well is it optimized?
Check for the usual SEO factors: Indexing, Backlinks, Domain Age, Rankings etc.
Who owns it?
Is it a private person, a company or a large corporation?
Is it possible that the owner could be influenced with money?
Is the content legal?
If you think it is and you can find out who is doing it and that person is within your
jurisdiction – then let your lawyer have a look at it
But don’t act yet! Wait until you have the full overview of options!

Step 6: Decide on The Right Strategies
Two categories of strategies
Brand, campaign or worst case scenario protection
General overview or damage control
Legal, Paid or Organic?
Which mix of solutions are most likely to work for you?
Get a good overview before you decide!
Most often a combination of
Paid and Organic is the best solution

A good protection strategy: Tail Gating
Tail Gating will protect you against future attacks
Angry customers
Negative news
Worst case scenarios
Any positive or neutral site can be used ...
All your own sites and your close partners sites
Profile pages, blogs, sub-domains, keyword-domains etc.
Any site where there is no risk of things turning negative
The goal with a Tail Gating Strategy is to “block the top”
- dominate top 10-30 for your top brand-reputation keywords

Step 7: Execute Your Strategies
Be very careful!
– Search Reputation Management can
seriously backfire if not done perfectly!

First, lets look at a few organic strategies ...

Can you remove negative sites?
Yes, but there are no perfectly reliable methods
Things that should harm your competitors may instead benefit them or harm you!
Big brands and sites driven by advanced webmasters will get back in very fast
Will hacking the websites work ...?
Yes it may, but It’s illegal …!
It’s illegal – even if you just break in to “update” the robots.txt file, mess up their
titles or make other “updates” that they probably won’t recognize before its to late
When did you last check you robots.txt file?
If you are like most – its probably a long time ago ...

Push down the negative sites!
Make other, more positive, pages rank above the bad ones
It’s like “normal” SEO – but instead of ranking just 1 site you have to rank 10, 20
or more!
All positive or neutral pages can be used!
Pages on your own sites
Pages on partners sites
Pages on 3rd party sites
Social sites, online profiles, business listings etc
You can not always expect to outrank all the negative sites
Use other methods to “remove” more of the rest ...

Make a different page on a site rank better
Negative pages from prominent sites are hard to suppress
Instead, find a less negative page on the same site and optimize (link build) it!
This listing is
currently on page 1
in Google
Score
-1
This listing would
probably be much
better to have!
Score
+1
This can be done with the right amount of link building to the second page!

Manipulate the source …
Inject new pages on sites
If there is no other (and more positive) pages on a community site you can boost
- then make your own!
If it is a major newspaper – create a bait they can’t reject  (consult a PR expert)
Add you point of view
If comments are allowed explain your case well and you may win the users …
Supply new “evidence” to the author
Try to make them use it
Tip: Read up on your “Social Engineering” skills …

Money talks - paid strategies works!

Use Search Advertising
It doesn't remove the negative results
– but it do at least provide a platform
for you to tell your side of the story

Buy the negative sites
Use ”stealth acquisitions”
Most people are for sale
– even the most dedicated people – if the price is right

Bribe has such a bad name ...
Financial enticements are acceptable
to some degree in many cultures ...
Just make sure what you do is legal ...!

Step 8: Monitor & Benchmark Results

Get alerted by Google – its free!
www.google.com/alerts/

May the force be with you ...
Strike Point
WebMasterRadio.fm (FREE)
DaveN & Mikkel deMib Svendsen
Monday at 21:00 CET
+2 MILLION
DOWNLOADS
Mikkel deMib Svendsen
Ninja SEO & Serial Entrepreneur
Mail: mikkel@demib.com
Phone: (+45) - 22 27 07 10
Blog: blog.demib.com
Twitter: demib

Search reputation-management

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