Emerging Internet Trend: Inside Look at Online Reputation Management
By David Tobia
September 7, 2012
September 7, 2012
- The Internet has led to an information revolution. And while the changes make access easier, it also makes hiding personal information more difficult.
- A new crop of businesses have launched with one task in mind: helping people hide their mistakes from the Internet. Companies like Reputation Changer specialize in helping to hide negative search results.
- Individuals pay Reputation Changer to release a stream of positive content about the individual. As the new stories flood the Internet, they eventually will flush the negative stories further down the search results, and off the first page. Since 89.7 percent of Google’s click-through traffic comes from the first page of search results, this method greatly reduces the risk of people uncovering the undesirable content.
- But Reputation.com CEO and founder Michael Fertik explains that his company does more than simply spam the Internet with positive reviews and press releases. His company uses databases of social expectations to determine how to craft the press releases for each individual customer.
- Fertik stresses that his company typically helps only people looking to change their image, or those who have unfairly been the victim of a cyber attack. He does not help people cover up criminal activities, he says.
- “Like many other things on the Internet, online reputation management is moving towards self-service solutions,” explains ReadWriteWeb. “Last week, Reputation Changer announced dashboard software designed to let its users monitor their own reputations. Other reputation management companies have similar tools in place or in the works.”
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