Just stop for one moment.
Think about where people go to find out about your company, your client, your product, your service or your industry.
It’s pretty straightforward.
They use a search engine.
Search Engines are incredibly important in ensuring that your company is top of mind among current and prospective clients.
I’m always amazed at how few PR people think about search engines. Understanding Search Engines, IMHO, is central to understand how you manage online reputations – and drive business.
But there’s another side to Search Engines….
There was a very interesting story in yesterday’s UK Sunday Times entitled "Smeared on the internet? Call in the cleaners".
Firms such as Reputation Defender (US), Tiger Two (UK) and Distilled (UK) offer services which promise to ensure that the top search results about you are positive.
This isn’t just simple search engine optimisation however.
The services ensure that only friendly entries appear on the first few pages of results when a client’s name is run through search engines such as Google.
It’s reputation cleansing.
Reputation Defender charges $25,000 per year for the basic service rising to $300,000 for the premium version..
Michael Fertik, chief executive of Reputation Defender, said one of his clients was an academic psychologist in London anxious to “bury” the fact he had written about his own depression.
“Demand for the service is extremely high. Almost all our customers are private individuals and our top clients are high-pro-file business people,” said Fertik.
Murphy's Law 