Fighting Negative Online Items On You

Daniel Sieberg On Companies That Help People, Businesses Combat Such Postings

(CBS)  If you Googled yourself and something negative came up in a top spot, would you know how to fight back?

One man, with a very popular name, decided to help others protect their good names, reports CBS News Science and Technology Correspondent Daniel Sieberg.

Chris Martin is the lead singer of Coldplay and the leading man of actress Gwyneth Paltrow.

But there's also the much lesser-known Chris Martin who hails from Baton Rouge, La.

And it turns out that sharing your name with a superstar can be a good thing in the digital age.

"Chris Martin is a great Google name," Martin observed. "If you go to Google and type in Chris Martin, you'll see tons and tons of pages about the lead singer of Coldplay. ... If someone were to post something negative about me, it would be difficult for that negative stuff to climb to top 10 of Google."

Two years ago, the Internet guru started ReputationHawk.com.

Clients seek out Martin when something untrue or insulting is posted about them on the Web. By tweaking search engine results and building a positive public relations campaign about the client, Martin tries to help rebuild their image. He calls it "Internet reputation management."

An anonymous posting reported by another reputation-protecting firm, KentCampbell.com, shows the damage negative online postings can do: "We lost a $5 million deal due to a single negative online reputation post placed falsely by a competitor."

"We produce new content that's positive and factual, and then we help move that into top 10 in Google, Yahoo, MSN, and all the other major search engines," explained Martin, by massaging things to make the negative material show up much lower among search results and hence, making the negatives much less likely to be seen.

Among Martin's clients are celebrities, big companies, sports figures, politicians and regular folks, such as teachers.

Job seekers and college applicants are affected, Sieberg notes. Seventy-seven percent of recruiters use search engines to research potential employees, and 54 percent of admissions officers use search engines to check on candidates.

Not surprisingly, the Chris Martin who started ReputationHawk doesn't come up when that name is Googled.

Then again, most people don't have a famous musician to overshadow them online.

Hiring Martin isn't cheap. He says it costs anywhere from $500 to $2,500 per month for his services.

[reputationha]

Hi cwfrank,

Colorful points... We are frequently contacted by well known publicists who are all interested in the same thing - white labeling our services. Most of them are lost when it comes to understanding the algorithms within a major search engine like Google. There is light years more to this process then simply posting keyword rich content on the net which is generally what they all try to do. As for the mentioning of PHP programming skills - it''s just a note to let visitors know that we create dynamic web sites for our clients and are not simply a press release farm. I do need to revisit the verbiage used on the web site. It''s difficult because I want the expression on the site to have a very personal feel and not a cold corporate one. For many of our clients this issue is very close to their heart so I want to make sure they know who I am and that I will personally research their situation, develop the project plan, and manage the campaign. I will go back over the verbiage with one of my writers. If you have any particular ideas I would be very grateful if you would write me. Thx man.

[titan458]

Great story! It''s nice to know that you have options if you get falsely trashed online.

[cwfrank]

Oh, yeah, and the guy''s website looks more like an advertisement than a ''professional service.'' I take it this ''advertisement'' is just free marketing for him by someone at CBSnews.com who knows him, after he probably complained about his name being confused and not getting hits online.

[cwfrank]

Are you kidding? You would make an example of this guy? He confuses "I", "Me" and "We" on his website, not to mention using his name, "Chris" in third person. In the skills section (under "About"), the guy mentions php (a programming language) as a skill. Is this a programming service, or reputation management (in which case why do programming skills matter?). If ''Chris Marin'' is not "cheap," then why not hire an actual publicist (expensive) to do what he does exclusively for the internet, but that a good publicist has overall reputation management services. Is this article meant to be a joke, or does the network just let any hired bum post anything as ''news'' (in shroud of promoting what appears to be a good idea). Maybe CBSnews.com should hire Mr. Confused to do their publicity management. What''s the point of this article?