Your brand deserves a better reputation

Online Reputation Management FAQ

• What is reputation?

  Reputation is the subjective, qualitative belief a person has in a brand, another person, a service, or other entity. Today, search results are the "middle-man" between the true character of an entity and how it is perceived. Online reputation management services work to improve how search engines reflect the reputation of brands, whether people, companies, or something else. Learn more about what reputation is here. 

• What is reputation management?

  Reputation is how a brand is seen. Reputation management works to improve how a brand is seen by engineering content and its visibility in search and social environments to improve the sentiment of a brand. A brand reputation can apply to a person, a company, a product, services, or even a political entity. Find out more about what reputation management is here. 

• What is defamation?

  Defamation and libel are often confused. Defamation is when someones words or other content cause damage to a person or brand. Libel is when those words are written down. Slander is when those words are spoken. Both libel and slander are methods of causing defamation. Want to learn more about defamation? Click here.  

• How does reputation management work?

  Reputation management works by identifying negative online content, removing what can be removed, causing positive information to populate the online environment, and enhancing the visibility of positive online content over that which is negative. Methods used in online reputation management include review improvement, ratings improvement, removal of negative content, suppression of negative content, and developing content that is supportive of the brand. To learn more about how reputation management works, click here. 

• Can search results really be changed?

  Most search results can be changed, but not all content with negative sentiment can be removed. A bad story about a company in a local online newspaper is easier to remove or push down than a negative New York Times article. Reviews and star-ratings are easier to change when there are few reviews, whereas brands with thousands of reviews can be changed but will take longer to do so. While many other factors go into answering the question as to whether search results can be changed, the answer is usually yes because no matter the content search engines display, it can almost always be improved. Google and other search engines generally react well to better, more highly optimized online content. 

• How can online reviews be improved?

  Online reviews can be improved by improving products, services, or the way customer service deals with issues. While this approach generally works to decrease the number of negative reviews, a more proactive approach to improving reviews and star-ratings on sites like Yelp, Google Reviews, and others needs to be taken. Reputation X uses an approach to improve reviews that differ from industry to industry. In some cases a gated review approach may be taken to vet reviewers before asking them to leave a review, for others gating is not necessary. In any case, reviews are improved almost 100% of the time. To learn more about improving online reviews, click here. 

• How much does reputation management cost?

  Reputation management costs between $3,000 one time, and $15,000 or more per month. The price range of an online reputation program varies widely based on factors that include the relative strength of a website hosting negative content, whether it can be removed via negotiation, whether Google will remove content from its search index, and many other factors. To learn more about costs and pricing for online reputation management services visit this page. 

• How long does it take to change search results?

  Some changes to search results, like removing a page, can happen in only a few days. Other forms of reputation management can take weeks or even years. The time it takes to change search results varies depending on a number of factors. For example, a typical campaign to improve online reviews may begin to bear fruit in only a week or two and continue to result in better reviews and ratings over time. But the time it takes to push search results down for a negative Wall Street Journal article for a financial services firm may require many months. Campaigns in languages other than English have their own timelines. To find out more about how long it takes to change Google or other search results see this article.