Do Reputation Management Services Work?

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For example, one company, Internet Reputation Management, founded last year by three partners in the New York area, recruits bloggers to write about clients on third-party sites, without necessarily disclosing that they're paid, according to partner Carl Sgro. "We ask bloggers to be truthful," Sgro says. "We don't want anything to be overembellished." Chris Martin, founder of two-year-old ReputationHawk in Baton Rouge, La., says his company runs blogs that promote his clients, but he doesn't pay bloggers to post on outside sites. Other companies warn against surreptitiously promoting clients on blogs, not least because if it comes to light, the damage is hard to control (BusinessWeek.com, 10/17/06).

Trying to spin search results is a tough game. For evidence, simply Google ReputationDefender. A recent search turned up in the fourth result a critical post from the Consumerist blog blasting the company for attempting to have a post removed. (Fertik says that taking down negative content, a service ReputationDefender markets to individuals, is not available for businesses.) Other bad press is not hard to find.

Google, for its part, says there is nothing inherently wrong with reputation services, but "if you use spammy and manipulative techniques to get this positive content to rank highly, we may take action on it," a spokeswoman writes in an e-mail. (With two-thirds of U.S. search volume in April, according to Hitwise, Google is clearly reputation companies' biggest target.) The company refers to its Webmaster Guidelines, for violations that can get sites banished, such as using hidden links or creating "cookie-cutter" affiliate pages just to boost page rank.

What should small-business owners make of all this? Beal says tinkering with what comes up when customers search a company's name may be necessary, but it's rarely sufficient to repair a reputation. "You have to take partial ownership in fixing your online reputation," he says. "It's not something that you can simply just provide a credit card number to a company and they can take care of it." While outside firms can help businesses influence results on Google, only the company itself can repair real damage to its reputation.

Flip through this slide show for advice on managing your company's online reputation.

Tozzi covers small business for BusinessWeek.com.

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