Online Reputation Management Horror Stories (James Dooley Chats With Craig Campbell)

James Dooley: Online reputation management horror stories. If someone is looking for ORM services, they are probably trying to clean up something online that they do not like.

Craig Campbell, you must have some horror stories about people trying to hide things through online reputation management.

Craig Campbell: I am just trying to think how I can word it without throwing anyone under the bus or getting anyone in trouble.

Any time someone has come to me asking to clean something up, they have usually done something they should not have done. There is a line that needs to be drawn in terms of what you are prepared to do or clean up. I have had people come to me after committing sexual crimes. I am not talking about rape or anything involving children, but they had committed a sexual crime and wanted online reputation management. When they told me what had happened, I said, “No, I cannot defend you.” I have had a lot of horror stories where people have done really bad, weird and creepy things. But I have also had situations where people were accused of things they did not actually do. In the UK, it often feels like you are guilty until proven innocent, and that is a problem. Depending on the nature of the accusation, whether it is violence, fighting, or something else, people sometimes have the right to move on, do their time and rebuild their lives. There are some situations where I have helped. One public example is Jeffrey Epstein. The Epstein files showed that he was paying money to protect and suppress things online. Reputation management does happen at that level. Some people have done terrible things and used PR, parasite SEO and other methods to push negative results down.

James Dooley: Anyone watching this can look up the Jeffrey Epstein files. If you search for his emails around SEO or reputation management, you can see the emails with SEO agencies about covering things up.

With online reputation management, you can suppress negative results with more positive sentiment. One of the biggest horror stories I have seen was someone in Florida who got arrested for being drunk and disorderly. They had not done much wrong, but their mugshot ended up on a government website and started ranking because the site was powerful. The agency they used for online reputation management tried to negatively impact the image ranking. Instead of suppressing it with better results, they sent bad traffic and bad signals to the image. It made the problem much worse. The image was only ranking around position six in Google Images, where not many people saw it. After the agency got involved, it jumped to position one in image search and then started pulling into web search through an image carousel. That is one of the biggest horror stories I have seen, because the attempt to fix it made the issue far more visible. I am close with people like Scott Keever, who runs a large online reputation management company, and he has told me some grim stories.

Craig Campbell: I will give you one that is bad.

If you Google “hottest girl in Manchester” and look at the images, you may or may not see James Dooley in a bikini.

James Dooley: That is actually a great example.

A picture of me in a bikini shows up for “hottest girl in Manchester”. It was from a stag do, and someone managed to rank the image. It shows that you can rank images, videos or web pages for almost any term you want. If someone was ranking for “ugliest girl in Manchester” and your image was position one, you would want to rank other images to suppress it.

Craig Campbell: It is a horror story because you cannot unsee it.

But it proves that people can cause damage to you, your brand or your business if they know what they are doing.

James Dooley: There are plenty of examples in the SEO community where people fall out and then cause serious reputation damage.

Some people have ranked other people's names for horrible terms, even when those people have done nothing wrong. They create negative stigma articles, make things up and get them ranking. That can affect whether someone keeps their job, wins business or sells a company at the right valuation. You have to be careful who you mess with in the SEO community because some people can do serious damage.

Craig Campbell: I will tell a story. It is not something I am proud of.

We had a client who had a lot of problems with his web developer. We were involved because we were going to do the SEO and PPC for the project. It took six months to get the website over the line, and the guy had paid around £50,000 for it. Two weeks after the website went live, we had started PPC and SEO work. He then said he did not think it was working and no longer wanted to work with us. I said that was fine, but there was a 30-day notice period and a final invoice. He then told my business partner that the terms and conditions were not worth the paper they were written on. I saw red. It was around £10,000 he owed us. I phoned him and said if the money was not in my account by 5pm, he was going to rank for something horrible. He got lawyers involved and made me sign something saying I would not defame him, his name or his company. I got paid, but I also told him afterwards that his paperwork was not worth the paper it was written on either. I should not have done that, and I would not recommend it, but I was not going to roll over for £10,000. That is the kind of thing people need to understand. If you fall out with an SEO, you might be dealing with someone who can cause serious damage.

James Dooley: The most disgusting part of that whole story is that your terms and conditions were probably stolen from someone else’s website anyway.

Craig Campbell: Yeah, probably.

James Dooley: Anyone watching this, what horror stories do you have with online branding or reputation management?

Are you stuck with negative stigma articles ranking for your name or business brand? If you are, reach out to me or Craig Campbell and we can put you in touch with some of the best online reputation management companies worldwide. Craig Campbell, it has been an absolute pleasure.

Craig Campbell: Cheers.