Category Reputation Management

Ripoff Report is a website setup to field anonymous complaints about a business or service, but some users post things that are untrue or damaging to your reputation. If you’re concerned about your online reputation management, read on for advice on how to remove Ripoff Report posts and salvage your presence in Google.

Social Media

If you’re worried about your appearance in search, than practicing good social media will help. Owning YouTube, Twitter and Facebook URLs from your brand will take up some of the space on page one of Google, making sure that negative content is pushed lower.

Request Removal

Ripoff Report does not typically respond to removal requests, and US laws protect them from anonymous content. However, a default judgment can help you.

DMCA

If any of the content posted belongs to you, for example the user used a picture from your website, then you can ask for removal of that copyrighted content. You’ll need to file a DMCA with the site, and with Google, but the content should vanish if you can claim you own it.

Court Ordered Removals

You can get a default judgment if you sue John Doe. This only works if the posting is anonymous. Essentially, the judge rules in your favor because the defendant doesn’t show up to prove his or her side. With that judgment, you can get websites to remove your content.

Consult a reputation Management Firm

Reputation management is a good route to pursue when you can’t find other solutions. The tips listed above may work for some of you. If the posts return, you may also need a good firm to manage these repeated incidents and reclaim your status in search.

Proactive reputation management is an excellent strategy for any scaling brand concerned about its image online. Being proactive means you stay on top of alerts to your brand, that you remain agile and can respond to customer concerns, and that you’re in touch with your brand’s appearance online. Here are some tips to help you create a system for yourself.

Domain Real Estate

The first thing you can do is to buy up all domain real estate for your brand within reason. You should buy all the common extensions of your brand name, including .com, .net, and .org, and you may want to try some variations on that name too. If you’re a bigger brand, buying your brand name with the word “sucks” attached to it is a good way to secure yourself from negative press before it happens.

Social Profiles

Another great way to expand your presence in search is to secure any social profiles around the Web. Start with the major names, like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, then branch out to the lesser known but still heavily trafficked properties (like Tumblr or Pinterest). This way, if you start to see a lot of activity on any platform you can quickly join the conversation.

Start Pitching Content

The final component to consider is to start promoting yourself by putting more of your work on various blogs. If you can get more guest articles published, you’ll start drawing in readers from outside your blog seeking your expertise. In addition, you also build links to your various profiles. These signals tell Google to identify your sites with your name, thereby improving your standing and reputation in search.

According to the Harvard Business Review, negative Yelp reviews can severely hurt the bottom line of your business. Restaurant’s seem to be among the most susceptible to the reputation management problems that come with poor reviews. Here are some of the ways that a negative Yelp review can affect your business for the worst.

Fewer Patrons

Negative Yelp reviews mean that fewer people will want to visit a given business, and many will be turned off immediately. Yelp reviews do carry some influence on social media, and users will be able to see the star rating immediately on the site itself. In addition, Google snippets may include information about a restaurant’s reviews, which are visible when a user searches for your brand.

In short, negative reviews cause a lot of image problems. Users will see these reviews and some will conclude your business isn’t up to their standards.

Less Revenue

Fewer patrons means less revenue. Negative Yelp reviews are a lot like leaving money on the table. You should do your best to try and read these reviews for critical feedback. If you change your customer service, users may leave positive reviews or take down their negative reviews.

Final Thoughts

Make sure you carefully read the terms of service for Yelp. They do not allow business owners to provide incentives for better reviews, and your site can be cited if you attempt to buy reviews online.

If someone has said something about you that is untrue, and damaging to your reputation, it can feel like you have no recourse for making things right. If you try and petition site owners that allow this kind of content, they may not respond to you. Here are some options for online reputation management if you’re ever in this situation.

Social Media

Practicing good SEO and social media allows you to push unfavorable results out of the top search pages. This helps improve your reputation when someone searches for content about you.

Request Removal

This strategy doesn’t always work because of US laws protecting site owners, but it’s always a good idea to try.

DMCA

If you own any of the text, or the images or video, that have been posted then a DMCA is a solid strategy. You simply claim ownership over the copyrighted material, and the site owner typically has little recourse to fight you.

Find Out Removal Guidelines

Yelp allows original posters to remove their reviews. Find out if you can talk with those users, and what you can offer them to try and get them to remove the negative review.

Court Ordered Removals

If the poster is anonymous, you can sue John Doe to get a default judgment. If this works, you have a court order you can present to the website in order to try and get removal from hosting companies and search engines.

Consult a Reputation Management Firm

Reputation management is a good last resort if you can’t solve the problem on your own. A variety of fixes are available, so you should definitely try and see what you can do before you consult a professional. However, understand that consulting a professional may come with guarantees of removal that can be valuable too.

Summary: A visual representation of what your business offers can give you that much-needed boost that you’ve been lacking.

Contrary to popular belief, reputation management isn’t just about social media monitoring. As a matter of fact, it involves other key aspects such as creating videos/slideshows to promote your business. This guide will discuss how you can go about doing this process without spending thousands of dollars that most mainstream studios demand.

Get a Video Made for $5

Yes, you read correctly. You can have your very own custom video made from the talented community at Fiverr for $5 and up. If you haven’t heard of Fiverr before, it’s essentially a marketplace of freelancers that offers a variety of tasks and services. Simply find a freelancer that has a majority of positive reviews, or one that specifically stands out to you, and reach out to the individual to see if he or her can accommodate your needs. Be sure to include as much detail as you can about your project so you don’t end up having to send it back for revisions.

Fiverr also provides services that allow you to get a head start, so to speak, when it comes to view counts and comments. A video that has little to no views obviously won’t have any impact on your business. However, if the online community sees a significant view count, they might just be intrigued to see what’s so special about your video.

Post Your Video on Popular Video Sharing Sites

Once you get your video back, you’ll need the appropriate exposure. This can easily be done by uploading your video on popular sites like YouTube, Dailymotion, and Vimeo. Remember, if your video stands out, it has the potential of obtaining virility status – meaning hundreds of thousands of people has seen your video and it’s essentially spreading like a wildfire amongst the community.

Be sure to place the relevant keywords in your video title to optimize it as well. For instance, if your video showcases the culinary industry, you’ll want to include specific words that people often search for. Nobody wants to click on a video that has a dull and uninteresting title. Furthermore doing this can help you create an online presence and even improve your company’s status in popular search engines like Google or Bing.

Summary: A nasty mug shot posted online can have detrimental effects on one’s personal life. Fortunately, there are ways to minimize the harm done.

Mitigating the damage stemming from a public mug shot is possible and can be done by implementing a variety of tactics. This guide is designed to showcase what steps you can take to bury these negative image results that pop up in the popular search engines.

Take Advantage of the DMCA

The DMCA, or Digital Millenium Copyright Act, can potentially help remove these unwarranted photos from domains that unlawfully obtained them. By filing a DMCA takedown notice and consulting with a DMCA agent, there is a possibility that these images can be taken down.

Push the Negative Image Down

While it’s extremely difficult to get a photo removed from a popular search engine like Google, the next best thing you can do is to simply bury them. One way you can go about doing this is to sign up for social media profiles. Since Google tends to continuously crawl the web for social media sites, your photo could get out there. By uploading multiple photos of yourself that are related to your name, you could essentially push the negative images to the depths of the search results – and most people aren’t persistent enough to go page after page to find an image or two unless you’re a celebrity or mainstream figure.

Let a Reputation Management Firm Help You

If the entire ordeal seems too much for you to handle, there are a variety of reputation management services, like Reputation Stars, that incorporate a combination of social media profiles and search engine optimization to, as mentioned before, bury your negative images deep into the results. While your image may never permanently deleted from the database, the goal of reputation management is to divert the crowd away from the images and instead focus on the positive life – therefore retaining the dignity that you believed to have lost when the picture was posted.

In the world of reputation management, Yelp is like a frequent offender. The site can seemingly hold a business hostage with negative reviews, but the good news is those reviews can be removed. Even better: you won’t need to pay Yelp a dime if you use these tips to help police your Yelp page.

Ask the Customer to Remove It

By far, the simplest method is to request that the customer just remove his review. Online reputation management companies almost always recommend this route first. Show some empathy, and directly address their concern. You can contact them through Yelp, or through any other means you might have to find them. Just make sure that you take the time you need to calm down. A negative review can make some feel heated, but that passion can only hurt your outreach efforts.

Look for TOS Violations

Another lesser known secret is to find reviews that don’t conform to Yelp’s terms of service. If the review was written on behalf of someone, or if the review reads like a personal attack, it can be struck down.

Last Resort: Respond

You can always respond to the review and try to address the concerns. As long as you’re fair and empathetic, this can be a good thing for your business. If the customer is stubborn, but you’ve attempted to fix the problem, then you no longer look like the bad guy in that situation. Although your stars still take a hit, others can jump in and offer positive reviews to improve your online reputation management.

Summary: Nude images plague today’s Internet space. The problem is, most of the images are posted without consent.

If you’re one of the many victims of what’s known as revenge porn, not all hope is lost. For years, people have dealt with the emotional stress of having their nude photos leaked across the Internet. Worst of all, there was simply nothing they could do about it. Don’t fret, this guide is designed to help minimize the damages that your ex has caused.

Make Contact With the Website Owner

If you know the specific domain that your pictures were leaked to, be sure and try to make contact with the owner of the site. But, let’s be realistic, these individuals are in it for the views and the clicks. They could care less about your privacy and the emotional impact that it’s caused to you. Still, it never hurts to try. Be upfront and firm, but also be sure that you maintain a high degree of self esteem as well.

Work To Get it Removed from Search Engines

If you haven’t done so already, file a DMCA takedown notice to the offending website or to the Internet Service Provider. DMCA is short for Digital Millenium Copyright Act and is comprised of a group of laws that protect against copyrighted content on a digital medium. If your picture is stolen and placed on the website without your consent, there is a chance that you can get it removed from the search engines by contacting a DMCA agent and providing the specifics of your case. Note that you need to follow the instruction of the agent and provide them with all the necessary details that he or she requires.

Look to Hire a Reputation Management Firm

Reputation management firms, like Reputation Stars, work to minimize the visibility of the images. By using tactics like Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and social media, these companies take control of the situation by making it much more difficult to locate the nude images. If the photos can’t be found, fewer people will even notice it exists, giving victims back their dignity and self-esteem.

Summary: Handling your online reputation can rapidly minimize monetary impact.

Proactively managing the reputation of your brand should always be at the forefront of your PR campaign. You would be missing out on maximizing your profitability and ROI by neglecting this aspect. Here are 5 important reputation management tips that you can use to boost your online reputation management efforts.

1. Social Media is More Powerful Than You Think
   

If you aren’t already aware, Google now allows Tweets to appear in the search results. This means social media can play a much more impactful role when it comes to your reputation. News media are always on the hunt for social media posts that are worthy of writing columns. What you say on these platforms can have a profound effect on your company, reputation, and profitability. Choose your words carefully.

2. Celebrate Customer Appreciation
   

Positive experiences don’t need to stay with the customer, have them voice their opinion. Gently request a review by asking them to share their experience with you. Most customers are quick to write negative reviews and bash companies left and right, but many don’t think twice about voicing their appreciation.

3. Develop Appropriate Content
   

While social media is king, so to speak, you may also need to build out social materials for more than just your company itself. If you have products outside your company name, it’s highly recommended that you develop content to rank for those names on the search engines. Remember, the more visibility that you have, the greater the chance that you bring in leads.

4. Reconcile When In the Wrong
   

If your company messes up or does something wrong don’t be ashamed to own up to your mistakes. After all, these things do happen on occasion, and a genuine apology can go a long way. Maintain transparency with the situation and be real with the affected client. Diffusing a situation and reconciling can potentially minimize the damages.

5. Don’t Be Afraid to Invest
   

Frugality won’t help develop your online reputation. Many small businesses ignore the fundamentals of reputation management or do it on their own time, which almost never works in their favor. Maintaining your social media and proactively handling your reputation management is a vital element to success. If you don’t have experience with this, it’s recommended that you interact with the various online resources or even go as far as to hire a team such as Reputation Stars to handle the dirty work for you.

We often get asked if it is possible to delete complaints on Ripoff Report completely.  The answer is yes, but is not easy and often it is not cheap. In this post we will explain a few ways you can get rid of Ripoff Report, some of these methods would not remove the report but may help you in making your reputation better.

• Court Ordered Removals:
  This is the only way a report may be completely removed. Basically you need to file a lawsuit against the poster and win. If the poster is not known, then you file a John Doe lawsuit and may get a default judgment. You then request a court ordered removal from the judge and present it to Ripoff Report. Ripoff Report may or may not remove it. They are more likely to remove it if you actually fought someone and won. If they fail to remove, then you present the judgment to Google, Bing and Yahoo and they are more likely to honor it and remove, so at minimum you may get the report deleted from the search engines, but not RipoffReport itself.  It can be expensive because most often attorneys need to do it. This is a service that we offer, but we do not charge as much as attorneys do, because we do not use attorneys. We even would guarantee at least removal from Google or you would not pay.  If interested, please contact us for details.

• SEO Push Down
  Using SEO techniques you can push down the report to second or 3rd page of Google search results so it is less visible in searches for your name or brand. This may also involve creation of mini sites, many social profiles, videos and writing many articles. This method is used by majority of reputation management companies.  This method could also be expensive because Ripoff Report is a pretty powerful site and you have to do lot’s of SEO efforts to succeed in pushing it down. One benefit of this method is that if you get posted again in the future, most likely the post would not show up high. However, if you use the court ordered removal and another post shows up, then you have to do the removal again, which would cost you more money.

• Cyber bullying or Harassment Removals
  Ripoff Report claims that they would redact information in cases of Cyber Bullying or online Harassment.  In fact, we have been successful in using this method for a client. You still need to make a good argument, so we recommend using us to do it, rather than trying it yourself.  This method would work for a very few people, maybe less than 1%. However, if you try to do it yourself, then it would cost you nothing. To try yourself send an email to the owner Ed Magdeson at editor@ripoffreport.com.

• Copyright Removals (aka DMCA Removals)
  DMCA stands for Digital Millennium Copyright Act. It was a law created in the 90’s to fight online copyright issues. If the post contains any copyright of yourself, such as if the poster has used your photo or content from your website, you may be able to file a DMCA request to have it removed. The DMCA may also be used to remove content if your personal info is posted such as your social security number, bank info, or other personal info.   If you send a DMCA to Ripoff Report, most likely they will just redact the content in question, but would not remove the whole post. Therefore, it is our recommendation to send it direct to Google. However, in 99% of the cases Google will tell you to send it to the site direct. You may have a small chance that Google may accept your request. This could be because Google may have tens of staff members viewing these requests and something may fall through cracks or the reviewer at Google may be having a good day and side with you.In the past few years, many people and/or reputation management companies have also tried to game the system and filed what is called Fake DMCA orders.  The way it works is that first you post a copyrighted content in the comments or rebuttal section of Ripoff Report and then you file a DMCA take down notice with Google claiming someone has copied your content.  Some people would use fake contact info and claim ownership of the content, even tough they were not the rightful owners. This is why it’s called a Fake DMCA order.This method worked for a while, but then Google caught on to it and started declining them. It is against the law to file fake DMCA’s so we do not recommend it. Although, it is highly unlikely that anyone would get in trouble for it, so that is why many got away doing it. You can see evidence of this happening if you search past DMCA removal requests at lumendatabase.org.In summary, this method does not work anymore, so do not even try it. The only time you may want to try it is if you really have your copyrighted content stolen and posted on RipoffReport.

• Ripoff Report’s VIP Arbitration Program
  Ripoff Report is offering an arbitration program to try and redact false info.  We have heard different numbers as far as what it costs. It could be as low as $2000 and as high as $10,000 per post. Basically, they will use an independent arbitrator to look at evidence provided by you and also by the poster and then make a decision if the report is false. If they decide in your favor, they will remove or redact certain parts of the report, but they will not remove your name or brand name from the post.  Hence, the post would still show up in Google search results, which is not a good thing.There are two huge cons with this method. A) It would only work if the post is untrue or fake and the poster does not respond or provide any evidence. B) The post remains on the site, so it still shows up in Google search results, hence anyone searching in Google for your company name will see it and that in itself is bad, because most people may associate a listing at RipoffReport to be negative and would move on without even reading the report.

If you have a negative review on Ripoff Report and need help with deletion or push down, contact us today to see what we can do for you.