Everyone wants to be #1 in Google. And if you’re not number 1, you are most likely vying for the next two positions. This is because the top 3 positions are the ones that bring in the most money. In the extremely competitive world of cyberspace, everyone certainly wants to be the top dog.

Fair business practices are what drive healthy competition, but such offensive online content directed against you is simply hitting below the belt. Sure, slander and libel may sometimes be considered part and parcel of free speech, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t do anything about it.

It’s true that the competition is getting fiercer with all companies in virtually any industry vying to land the precious first result of any search engine. Just how dirty you want to play the game depends on you. You can try to push yourself up the ranks. You can also decide to push negative reviews of the products up the ranks as well. This is why it is important to do reputation management to protect your image online.

Should you find yourself in such an unfortunate situation where a website gets a high page rank for an important keyword to your business, and it badmouths your products or services online, take heart. As they say, there are many ways to skin a cat. In this particular instance, however, only a few of the methods stand out to have any lasting result. Here are some things you can do separately or together.

One, do nothing and pray that the market knows better than to take them seriously, and that the ruckus will fade way sooner than later. Two, contact the site administrator or owner and politely demand that the offending content be taken off the site. Three, send a legal letter against the site owner for defamation of character with a court injunction to remove the offending content. Four, get professional help by means of a competent search engine reputation management company to reverse the situation and bring down the offending site several pages down the search engine where they can do no damage.

Frankly, the first two options will get you nowhere and will mostly likely worsen your situation. While there are some sites that may have inadvertently posted the offending article and are willing to take those down at your request, some will deliberately ignore you. Ignoring all the defamation slander is not the answer as well!

What about litigation? The third option is the traditional big business way to scare website owners into pulling down content that is slanderous. For some websites, you will be able to get your way. For others, they will call your bluff and you will have to drag your butt to court. There are not only time and litigation expenses but it will also continue to take its toll on your brand because the content will not be pulled down immediately. In fact, you may have to wait until the court decides in your favor so you might as well just go ahead and do search engine reputation management.

Nothing beats proactive and aggressive counter-action to neutralize malicious online slander. Brand protection is as much a basic marketing function as advertising and promotions, whether online or offline. Doing so online will often require the right SEO professionals to manage online reputation.

Get a Wag the Dog Marketing Los Angeles, CA allegation cleanup repair analysis today at (800) 825-9500.

advertising · defamation of character · internet defamation · law · legal · libel slander · marketing · reputation repair · Search Engine Optimization · seo