Make no bones about it – Google is the search engine that the majority of people use. It is, after all, perceived as the most convenient, the quickest, most effective search engine. While there are security and privacy issues associated with Google, it remains the most popular search engine among Internet users. This only means one thing – Google search results have a significant impact on your business and reputation.

The Best Way To Delete Negative Google Search Results

The Reputation Management Company provides an in-depth guide on the best ways to delete negative Google search results. It’s important to understand how search works, as well as know that no one person actually has complete control over what goes onto the Internet about their reputation. People also come to us wishing that they could control every piece of content and that’s when we start to explain how search works and that you can’t completely stop a crazy person from posting about you but we can control the ranking.

People post reviews and recommendations on their own. Journalists report on stories and typically will not retract or remove content after the fact. Positive news stories seem to be few and far between. Negative stories and hit pieces are the norms if you visit any local news or mainstream media site. The rare positive and promotional pieces are usually beneficial to the company or individual featured and take up another spot in the search engine results. Negative search results, on the other hand, are usually either real-life experiences of clients who have legitimate/illegitimate complaints or made-up/exaggerated issues meant to damage the reputation of a business or individual. Unfortunately, these results are available for everyone to view and those who read them are more likely to allow it to influence their decisions.

Once you figure out a way past the bad results you will feel liberated on the other side. Kind of like passing through the Panama Canal.

Why You Should Delete Negative Google Search Results

Many potential customers and clients rely on Google search results to find what they need.

Negative search results can do any or all of these things:

• Undermine your reputation – A business could be a startup or a decades-old enterprise and it could still be damaged by a single well-timed review. Many consumers will doubt a company’s capability and the quality of its products and services. As a result, the more likely they will take their business elsewhere.
• Loss of business – When consumers stay away from a business, it will naturally lose revenue. Businesses that are given a rating of lower than 2 stars are likely to lose a third of their revenue on average. If you’re an individual with unwanted results you want those gone for your reputation.
• Lower-ranking on search engines – A low ranking on search engines can spell disaster for a business, especially one that is trying to gain a footing in the industry. This is true with enterprises that are mainly doing business online or trying to reach a wider market. This is mainly because search engines tend to post the best-performing websites on the top of results for users to view.

So How Do I Delete Negative Google Search Results

There are ways to delete negative Google search results, although they do require a bit of work. Having a relationship with a webmaster, SEO, or editor at a website will help as in most cases we are able to pay the owner of a website for the deletion or a vendor that they work directly with for removals. Second, consider if the issue being raised online is genuine. If it is true, use all necessary solutions to ensure that the problem is rectified otherwise even if we fix this result it may very well come back up. If getting in touch with the consumer directly is helpful, then do so. In many cases, all a consumer wants is acknowledgment about his/her complaint and when the company provides a solution, he/she will be more than happy to provide a positive review thereafter and may even remove the old bad review that you didn’t want online.

It is also possible to get in touch with the website owner or webmaster of the page where the negative review was published and write them a request to remove the negative post. The request should include the reason/s why the content is causing problems for the business. It is also a good idea to provide proof that the negative content is untrue, inaccurate, defamatory, baseless, or a simple misunderstanding, whichever is the case.

If All Else Fails…Not everything can be fixed by a reasonable request. In some cases, however, a negative Google search result is much more difficult to deal with. A business can always send Google a Legal Removal Request but this might take some time and may not always lead to a positive resolution if it doesn’t check all the requirements. If nothing comes from any self-directed efforts, it may be time to consider hiring a reputation management company to help out.

What is a Reputation Management Company?

An online reputation management company is engaged in professional work to help influence the way people (end-users, consumers, target market, etc.) view a business, product, brand, or even an individual or a group. These companies usually focus on branding and online public relations issues, although they may also utilize other platforms to help in managing their clients’ google autocomplete suggestions and reputations offline as well as a review management platform.

When it comes to deleting negative Google search results, a reputation management company can design an effective plan to approach and resolve the problem. In many cases, the company can even turn to aggressive positive news promotion to have derogatory search results eliminated or at least, bumped off so they do not appear high on search pages.

ORM companies may even turn to their legal teams to have damaging posts and content removed from a site. This is usually necessary in cases where the negative search result is unfounded, untrue, or greatly exaggerated. Harmful posts can work fast in causing damage to a company’s reputation, which is why it is often prudent to have a professional team handle the issue. The only downside of this is a defamation attorney or law firm can be extremely expensive compared to the costs of a digital marketing agency like ours here in Utah.

Managing the reputation of a business should be a critical component of a company’s marketing plan. There are, of course, ways for a business to do it on their own but there are issues that are far more complex and complicated for that business to handle and it’s not easy to remove results you don’t like online. Having a reputation management company take control is far more feasible and effective in ensuring that one’s reputation is maintained and protected.