Company to clean up bad online reputations

Anybody who has been the subject of negative online publicity must wish they could press a button and make it disappear.

Now a company is claiming it can do just that.

US firm Reputation.com specialises in “removing or burying” any website, news, blog, forum, or review that shows clients in a less than positive light.

The company was set up in California in 2006.

It expanded to the UK four years ago, and is now focussing on Ireland.

“We have had clients from Ireland in the past who were proactive in seeking us out, so there is a demand for our service and we’re making Ireland a priority for 2013,” said a spokesman.

He said queries were 70% business and 30% personal. “It really is a mixture. We have high-end directors of companies to run-of-the-mill tradesmen. It’s a variety of problems — it can range from a poor review in a forum to a targeted blog.”

The company targets the suggested searches that pop up on Google when a name or brand is entered.

The suggestions are based on popular searches, so if a firm has been in the news for the wrong reasons, it is the issue most likely to pop up for suggested reading.

By creating multitudes of searches for positive stories or reviews, those issues can be pushed up the popularity rankings to appear first.

Such services are big business in the US, but Gerry Davis, CEO of the Public Relations Institute of Ireland, opposes using them as a tool for clients here.

“My first instinct would be that it is the complete antithesis of what public relations is meant to be about.” he said. “Burying bad news is not our business. It doesn’t address the problems underlying the negative publicity.

“There is no quick fix. If there is bad news or negative stories, you have to get them out, get them ventilated, and move on with the good stuff after that.”

Mr Davis said he believed such services would have limited effect in the small Irish market. “There’s no point trying to bury something online if people are talking about it on the street. There is something cynical about it and I would be surprised if any public relations practitioner here would stand over it.”

But Reputation.com says the demand speaks for itself. “Most of our clients will have tried to fix things themselves and try to get a better online presence, but a lot of them would not have the resources or know-how to do that.”

A spokesperson for Google said: “It’s important to bear in mind that search engines do not have the ability to remove content directly from the internet, so removing content from Google or another search engine would still leave the original content that exists on the web.”

Google’s ‘Me On The Web’ offers advice and tips for addressing and removing unwanted personal material.