The Ethics of Reputation Management (or, "Getting Stuff Deleted From Google")

Online reputation management is something that most of us have done. We've all crafted something on our blogs or social networking profiles to project a specific image to the public. Unless a blog or profile is private, we have no idea who that "public" might include. Our friends and family are the most likely viewers, but there's the chance that people we don't like, people who don't like us or complete strangers are checking us out online. So we show our off best sides, effectively Photoshopping out our blemishes for public consumption.

So what happens when simply creating flattering content on your own websites isn't enough? What happens when you've really messed up and the SERPs are flooded with negative news when someone searches for your name?

A while ago, SEOmoz had an individual approach us for reputation management work. This person wanted us to "get rid of" the problematic links that showed up when one searched at Google for his company. Scott and I went to work researching this guy and his business, and the news wasn't good. Quite aside from the information that he wanted gone about his business, there were older links that detailed some of the really nasty stuff he'd been up to. To cut a gross story short, this wasn't someone SEOmoz wanted to work with, and we didn't.


However, as with everything, there appears to be a gray area. No pun intended of course, but this experience made me wonder how much bad news is too much? If someone comes to you for reputation management, it's highly likely that they're responsible for committing the sins highlighted in the SERPs. If they were innocent, they'd not be at an SEO firm, but in court, filing for libel.

However, if you've found someone who really doesn't deserve to be bashed on Google anymore, making headway isn't usually too hard. Your task is a combination of creating new content to move up the rankings, or to push existing positive content up instead. Either way, you're probably going to be creating some social media profiles and writing a fair bit of unique content about a person if you want to do the job well.

This is the second place where ethics come in, because you're just a rotten spammer if you're making dozens of MySpace profiles and linking to random forums. In which you've spammed the comments. If you're going to keep your white hat on, you have to create some real content about the person. You'll want to create a questionnaire for them before you begin so that you know where they're from, all the things they do professionally, some positive information about their personal life, where they went to school, etc.

Familiarize yourself with their occupation and company before you begin. If you find that they're one of those businesses whose mission statement and company description is nothing but meaningless eCommerce rubbish, try to make up something more readable. A brief poke around a website will tell you that someone is, for example, in the business of making very expensive project management software for Fortune 500 companies, not "providing monetary solutions and elegant interfaces for a streamlined web enterprise experience."

I'm interested to know what other people's experiences with reputation management have been like. I've only engaged in one campaign (although I recently dreamed up a theoretical one for an acquaintance who did something thoroughly scandalous in New Zealand once). I don't believe it to be a hard venture, but I still have questions about the ethics of "removing" negative news. Is it any difference to "un-tagging" embarrassing photographs of yourself on Facebook, or is it deceitful to bury information?