Cleaning up your online reputation
What do you do when your online reputation has been tarnished? What do you do if you have an unauthorized sex tape on the web? If you’re one of the Vancouver Stanley Cup rioters or a shamed politician or just a regular person who has made some questionable choices that ended up online, how do you clean up your online reputation, when the Internet doesn’t have a delete or reset button?
For the most part you’re screwed.
But there is some hope. According to a story in the Ottawa Citizen, Carmi Levy, an independent technology analyst says with a lot of effort and a bit of web savvy, unpleasantness on the internet can be managed.
According to Levy, the strategy begins with posting content on the Web that accentuates your positive attributes so that it makes the unflattering content harder to find in search engines.
Levy advises that people who have been disgraced or shamed on the web should upload videos of themselves volunteering at the hospital or planting trees. They should blog about the good works they do and post comments to the local newspaper to show they’re a concerned citizen and then hire an SEO expert to maximize hits on those items.
As Levy advises, don’t expect changes to happen overnight, but the same tools that were used to destroy your reputation can be used to help restore it.
That’s all well and good for some people, but what if your problem is much bigger than that? What if you went down like Andrew Weiner?
Levy advises in the Ottawa Citizen that for those in a real bind who are willing to pay a hefty price, there are some companies that can help.
Among the companies that specialize in online reputation repair, Reputation.com in Redwood City, California, says on its website that its personal “reputation advisors” can assist clients monitor and shape their online reputations. The company offers services like: creating personal web pages and helping clients write and distribute online biographies and profiles that are published to strategically selected websites. Clients can even get monthly progress reports showing how their reputation has improved.
Contrary to your first instincts, experts warn that making public apologies on YouTube, Facebook or other online mediums can serve to create a larger record of the original misdeed.
As the Ottawa Citizen reports, according to a British survey released in April by the security firm Norton, 51 per cent of adults said they would “hit a reset button” to remove all information about them online if given the choice — and 35 per cent said they would not be able to run for political office because of what’s available about them online.
It’s becoming an increasing problem. The sad thing is too many people don’t realize that what happens on the Internet, stays on the Internet, in most cases, forever.
With jobs, university admissions and political positions scrutinizing applicant’s web activity it’s becoming good business managing disgraced reputations online.
Google recently launched a new tool called “Me on the Web” that allows users to be notified whenever their personal information gets posted online and offers advice on how to remove unwanted content posted by third parties.
Embarrassing and unpleasant things are bound to happen and in this digital age, they’re bound to be recorded, just remember, the best defense when unwanted content appears on the internet is a good offense.
Strategies for cleaning up online reputations have become increasingly important in the online gambling industry with so many domain seizures and shut-downs occurring as of late. Management of online PR can make or break the reputations of online operators as many are beginning to find out, the hard way.
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