In a post that got considerable attention, I raised the subject of how to protect yourself from online falsehoods that show up in search engine results. Here are a few ways NOT to go about it.
1. Don’t just hide, as all too many Slashdot commenters suggested. As I wrote in the original post, it won’t work: “The internet WILL tell stories about you, true or otherwise. Make sure your own version is out there too.”
2. Don’t threaten libel suits unless you’ve really been libeled — if then. Otherwise, messes like this can ensue.
3. Don’t use questionable services like ComplaintRemover and RepSavior. Hints that they might be less than savory include:
- A chat box opens, purporting to show the same pleasant young woman named “Taylor” present and ready to chat with you. She’s “there” 24 hours per day — until you try to chat with her.
- ComplaintRemover.com prominently displays the false information “Posting to forums and blogs will actually lower the rank of your website”
- ComplaintRemover.com also prominently says “We have a network of thousands of high rank websites! This allows us the ability to dominate keywords and phrases such as your name or business!” That strategy — producing scads of links from irrelevant sites — is the kind of SEO (Search Engine Optimization) that gets sites into real trouble with Google.
- ComplaintRemover.com has irrelevant links (something about Doctor Decisions) at the bottom of the page.
- RepSavior.com apparently has or recently had a page that was even worse in that regard.
- ComplaintRemover.com also prominently says “Our company has exclusive technology … Toyota, eBay, WellsFargo and Dell (just to name a few) already use this technology.” Unless the four companies named are actual users of technology provided by ComplaintRemover.com, that’s deceptive (because of the word “exclusive”).
4. Even if it’s not sleazy-seeming, don’t use an expensive service to generate benign search engine hits until you’ve tried out easy do-it-yourself options.
Better yet, don’t worry about negative opinions at all. Just put positive statements about yourself out there, and let searchers decide which to believe. It’s easy to get your own sites about yourself to the top of the search engine results; you’ll only need to use a fraction of the techniques outlined here and here.
Of course, if you really have done something damning, you may have a problem …
