If you use unethical reputation management tactics, your reputation is still tarnished
Using unethical/blackhat online reputation management tactics is like an athlete taking steroids. Yes, you may see some improvements, but you will eventually be found out and suffer the consequences–just ask Lance Armstrong!
That’s why Reputation Refinery will never use any ORM tactics it considers to be unethical and why Buzzfeed News turned to our CEO, Andy Beal, for his help in uncovering such tactics and provide a warning for others:
Andy Beal, a consultant and author of books about SEO and online reputation management, told BuzzFeed News that most reputation projects involve “using search engine optimization to try and push negative pages further down Google [results].”
“If you’re trying to get positive things to show up in Google, those positive things need to be legitimate, be real.”
To make that happen, Beal says he works to create high-quality, positive content about a client that reflects who they are. The goal is to give a client the reputation they’ve rightfully earned, he says.
“Your reputation is a reflection of your character. So if you’re trying to get positive things to show up in Google, those positive things need to be legitimate, be real — they need to be an extension of the great things that you’re doing,” he said.
“In a legitimate reputation clean-up campaign, you focus on rehabilitating a reputation, not just whitewashing the internet with fake, positive content,” Beal previously said of that campaign.
