Michael Gray hit the nail right on with his post concerning the debate surrounding Lane Hartwell and Richter Scales. He illustrates the need to manage your reputation because Google truely does keep a permanent [online] record that will last long after your situation has been resolved.
This is the perfect example of the phrase “sometimes when you win you really lose, and sometimes when you lose you really win” by Rosie Perez.
Lane Hartwell’s victory will be an empty one, but then she and her friends will probably say it was never about the money anyway, it was really the principal that was important, and this is a moral victory which brings important attention to the issue of image theft on the internet. She’ll be right and her friends will congratulate her on the victory, but at the end of the day she’ll be left holding the bag, and that bag is the permanent record that is your Google SERP
One of the consulting services I offer is reputation management and one of the first questions I have for potential clients is, Have you picked up the phone and tried to work this out with the people in question? The simple truth is if more people did this there would be less billable work for me. Not that I don’t want the work, but as a professional consultant if I don’t recommend the solution that’s best for the client, whether it’s the best option for me, I am doing this clients a disservice. I’d rather have a happy person who never turns into a reputation management client than an upset one who does.
Recent Comments