Last Updated on August 9, 2023 by Steven W. Giovinco
Repairing a Web Reputation Takes More than Just Signing Up for a Dozen Local Search Sites.
The Problem
I spoke to a financial advisor who called me looking to have his son’s online reputation repaired.
After doing some initial research by looking at the issue, I gave an honest assessment and estimated it would take at least six months or more to resolve. Because it was a reasonably severe problem involving three articles from a high-profile city newspaper appearing prominently on the top of the first page of Google search results, the online reputation repair process would cost about $4,500 per month.
The Wrong Solution
I didn’t hear back from him after that, which is fine.
But in checking back three months later, as I usually do to see if I can offer additional help, I noticed something: I saw the creation of about a dozen local search sites and other accounts. They ranged from:
- Crunchbase
- Naymz
- Topix
- Anglefire
- Whitepages
- Myspace
- Intelius
- Zoominfo
- 411
Creating Accounts Don’t Work
Unfortunately, these are useless and rarely suppress the negative links off the first page of Google search results.
Someone–either the father or a low-cost reputation repair company–tried to fix the problem by creating many local search accounts.
It is admirable to attempt a solution yourself. Frankly, it’s not practical. Those three very damaging articles had not budged and were still showing up very prominently in Google searches. And they will most likely never push down the adverse news articles. Ever.
Old Solution
I know previous blog posts from several years ago mentioned the possibility of repairing your online reputation by creating many search accounts such as the ones above.
The days of those being effective are long gone. Google has changed its search formula to weed out these exact kinds of sites–in fact, certain ones may even be considered spam by Google, further hurting your online reputation.
The Proper Web Repair Process
A proper repair process involves picking appropriate social media platforms and developing engaging, interesting, and valuable content to share there.
There are no shortcuts. It may take twenty hours or more per week for at least six months and over one thousand messages, posts, or micro-blog items to resolve the problem correctly. So if you have a negative online reputation and try to fix it yourself or engage a low-cost solution by only creating new online accounts, it won’t work. Many people try the “DIY” approach, but very few reputation issues are ever resolved this way in reality. I see many lawyers, small business owners, accountants, art dealers, and more try this, but frankly, it’s a waste of valuable time.
Questions?
If you have questions, always feel free to reach out. Contact me, Steven W. Giovinco, at Recover Reputation.
2 thoughts on “The Days of Just Creating Accounts To Repair Your Online Reputation Are Over”
It used to work, but Google values good–excellent–content over anything else, so when I hear people creating sites, I have to wonder how the results will really be.
It used to work, but Google values good–excellent–content over anything else, so when I hear people creating sites, I have to wonder how the results will really be.