The Cost and Expense Drivers of Online Reputation Management

The Cost and Expense Drivers of Online Reputation Management

With the power and reach of the Internet today, it’s very easy to find personal information on a given individual with just a few terms on a major search engine. As a result, one’s online reputation is now becoming just as important and life-influencing as a real-time, personal reputation. However, while a given piece of information may not necessarily be easy to remove from the Internet, there are ways to make it harder to find on a search engine. These services, for a fee, provide that kind online reputation management. The work takes time but it can be effective.

Background

Internet search engines use programs named meta crawlers to tag and track every piece of information available on a web page. This information is then compiled and stored into search engine databases and can be retrieved instantly when a query requests the information through a matching term.

Given the power of search engines, bad personal data can include a DUI report, past jobs, career moves, and even graduation dates. Depending on how deep or specific one goes with a search engine, the data can be found, shaping a person’s reputation to others as well as relationships. Not surprisingly, people want to get started now fixing issues when they find out how big an exposure exists.

Services Provided

Online reputation management services often focus on two fronts: removal of data and “burying” of data. The removal of the data is the easier of the two. The service goes out and finds the offending information on the Internet and, if incorrect, either requests or persuades the site owner to take the information down. If that doesn’t work or it’s not possible, then the service works proactively to “bury” the data deep into the lower pages of a search engine response. This is done by creating a large amount of recent information online about a person so that the first number of search engine response pages only show the good content. Ergo, the bad material is layered far into the results.

Costs

In terms of expense to an individual customer, online reputation management is sold either as an ongoing subscription where a service regularly works to keep search engine data clean as much as possible or as a one-time project. Company level pricing for these services ranges from hundreds of dollars per month to tens of thousands. Much of the cost variation depends on how much work needs to be done to clean and then maintain a reputation case. The true test is how credible the online reputation management company is and if they are able to perform for you. Call the number posted on this page to speak to a representative from #1 Rated Online Reputation Management Company in the World.