So maybe you were doing a vanity search (searching for your own name in Google or Yahoo), or maybe you were just doing some SEO homework to see how your website was ranking. Either way, you stumbled upon some negative information on a forum or service review website.

One that made you steaming mad…

Of course it happens. Of course you have a right to be angry. Of course you want to defend your good name, jump into the ring swinging to defend your company honor.

But don’t do it.

Please, do not react to those reviews like this because it’s going to hurt you more than it’s going to help you. Let me explain to you how most of the search engine algorithms work. You see, they like to see activity on a website. So when you add new content to a forum, blog or review site, you are actually adding fuel to the fire. Google and the rest see the site as a hot news item, being updated frequently, so they rank it better in the search results.

Yup, your reaction makes their complaint rank higher in the search results. It also makes it harder for us to move when we get hired to clean up the mess. If you’ll consider action rather than reaction, you’ll make our job easier and the overall cleanup less expensive and faster overall.

I know it’s tempting to defend your good name. But I ask you to leave this to us. Trust me, we’re going to fix the problem and we’re going to defend your name for you with positive content creation. But you have to let us do our job.

Not that we can’t clean things up if you’ve already responded out of passion. It’s just easier to do if you haven’t added content to the offending site or sites.

An angry review can hurt you. A hasty response to an angry review can hurt you even more. Instead of reacting, please call us and let us launch a plan of action to fix the problem.

Our toll free number is 800-818-6286 and we’re here to help. Give us a call and let us show you how we can fix your online reputation.