Wednesday, July 28, 2010

New Online Reputation Management Case Study from Elixir Interactive

After months of careful documentation and analysis, I am pleased to announce that Elixir Interactive has released our online reputation management case study, “Brands Under Attack.”

As early as September 2009 a number of online reputation management companies came under systematic attack by an unknown company or individual intent on damaging their online reputation by ranking false complaints in the search engine results pages. When Elixir itself was first attacked in March 2010, I posted on my official blog about our initial findings regarding the roots of the smear campaign. The result seemed to be an even more vicious and unrelenting campaign against that continues as I write this. Rather than simply take care of the problem and go on, I decided to document the tactics used by our assailant as well as the steps we took to counter them.

Elixir, being an ORM company with years of experience helping clients recover from bad SERPs, was well-positioned to fend off this smear campaign. By strengthening existing assets, creating new assets, and taking calculated steps with complaint sites, we have managed to keep our SERPs clean. This case study, which can be viewed and studied at http://www.elixirinteractivecomplaints.com, documents those steps and provides additional information and advice for use by anyone who feels they are at risk for such an attack – and even for those who might not realize they are at risk.

After all, if ORM companies can be so easily harassed, what does that say about the safety of the carefully built reputations of less web-savvy brands or even individuals? After enduring months of persistent hits, I can only conclude that no one’s reputation is 100% safe online. If someone is willing to put in the time, money, and effort to do so, they can easily take advantage of black hat tactics and the anonymity of the online world to create – and rank – bogus and even slanderous reports against any company.

My hope is that companies can use this case study to bolster their reputations against such an attack or, if necessary, to counter an attack once it occurs.

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