Comments on: Why Google Reputation Management?

By: SocialTrending

SocialTrending — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 11:32:01 +0000

Andy, In terms of “recklessly linking” what is your take on linking to sites with low page rank? We like to get involved in online discussions as much as possible and tend to leave our website in the comments section (when optional), do you see this as detracting from link strength or being neutral?

By: Jacques @ SEO Tools South Africa

Jacques @ SEO Tools South Africa — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 17:15:14 +0000

Andy, you are the king of online reputation management, the 1st time I came across the phrase and concept was here on your blog, so your perspective is highly valued. Firstly one has to be aware of any negative information concerning ones particular brand / project / whatever and then pretty much bury this with positive stuff. That’s the theory anyways….

By: Andy Beal

Andy Beal — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 15:06:47 +0000

I’ve not seen any evidence that would make me believe that Google is anything other than sentiment agnostic. There are plenty of companies that have very bad reputations, but have no negative results in the top 10 in Google. If Google really wanted a mix of positive and negative, then us reputation management guys may as well pack up and go home!

With that said, the advice is sound. Leverage your existing content and, most importantly, your “super-brand.” If you’re #1 on Google for your company name, then no other web site has more authority for your brand than you do. The pages you create, sub-domains you build, and external pages you link to, all benefit from being associated with the super-brand. Unless you’re recklessly linking to your detractor, they can never get this kind of boost!