Easy way to deal with this. Refine your search. Type in "Webloyalty.com" and "scam" or "fraud" and see what happens.

Web santization is employed by many and in different ways. This internet phenomenon is also used to change Wikipedia and other Wiki information by individuals, groups, foundations, etc that prefer to white wash their history.

There are many reported instances, just search

Yep, irt's easy!

On the section put a "exeption" limit on most "negative "key wods and "voila', all malfactions of any firm disappears from search engines.

Of course the more sophisticated the "exeption tags" on "more key words" will scrub to bleech white.

Web sanitization article at FORBES with examples of Fortune 500 companies that purged data on Wikipedia.
http://www.forbes.com/technology/2007/08/15/wikipedia-editiing-publishing-tech-security-cx_ag_0815wiki.html

Well it seems to me that if the company was worried about its reputation, it would put quality customer service first. If you have a good quality of customer service (no voice prompts, not overseas based) then the vast majority of the time even problems are resolved without irritated customers. Just a matter of time till someone produces the software program that is listed in the book boomsday to take this a step further.

Another excellent article. Thank you for helping to keep us informed.

"Scrubbing" has been going on for a long time and is not confined to private enterprise. This summer a new tool for revealing Wikipedia edits was released and it has turned up some funny yet disturbing edits. For more information see the following:

BBC News- Wikipedia 'shows CIA page edits':
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6947532.stm

WIRED's list of salacious edits:
http://wired.reddit.com/wikidgame/

Wikiscanner:
http://wikiscanner.virgil.gr/

Remember, 1984 was 23 years ago. I recommend everyone read Edward Bernays' book "Propaganda" and while reading keep in mind that it was written in 1928.

Ah..... So this is how Wal-Mart is keeping the negatives sites and comments buried. One thing to realize is that now that you've posted an article on this, they tartget you and bury this one too...

There should be no need for a company to hire a reputation scrubber if they are on the up-and-up, have excellent customer service, a good product/service and care about the customer.

Like an individual, a company and its employees are responsible for their reputation and if they do something to tarnish said reputation than they need to be responsible and fess up, not bury their heads in the sand.

Brendler is right that this gaming of the system does a disservice to anyone doing legitimate research. When you begin fiddling with the natural balance of an open forum like the internet, it threatens what people really want to find--the truth. Negative comments and personal attacks on the internet abound; that's nothing new. The savvy consumers are those who can wade through the positive hyperbole and excessively negative comments to discern the truth. Any company that uses the services of Done! SEO probably has something to hide, which, if you ask me, is as big a negative as any of the potentially damaging information that may turn up in Google search.

another way the scammers found to make money. I hate to see it but if this crap continues the government will have to control the internet... oh big brother, where art thou????

So...

When I make fun of Wal Mart...

They bann me from commenting on MSNBC and close my MSN groups?

That is very unamerican!

after reading this article,I tried to find consumer web watchunder many different spellings, & had no luck. But I did locate several companies that come up under that name.I will put these business in my don't patronize list(along with ones that use pop up, saturation & otherwise annoying ads). Just shows how the web and search engines are becoming irrelavant and dishonest. as for the net anymore, "let the buyer beware".

Sure, there are some people who give a business a negative review based on some irrelevant detail, but most consumers give honest reviews of the goods and services they receive. The topic of this story is an example of what I call the 'Adversarial Relationship' that many companies create between themselves and consumers. The 'Adversarial Relationship' comes from a company's practice of tricking consumers into agreeing to a service or charging a consumer a fee that was buried in small print. Your cable company, Telephone Company, Internet service provider, credit card Company, and many others engage in practices designed to deceive customers into spending more. This practice of jinking search engine results in a company's favor (in other words, deceiving the consumer), clearly falls into the 'Adversarial Relationship' category. We, as consumers, need to be even more diligent today.

Consumers should have the right to view all information, not the info that companies want to be seen. I make sure that when I'm searching for info on a company I always put their name along with keywords like: complaints, refunds, bad service. I've never had a problem making a decision about a company after that. Typically they have 0-3 comments which isn't bad or they have pages, which I then steer clear from.

Why should anyone be surprised at this? Paint me a pessimist, but we have become a country full of liars and poseurs, from the lowliest grade school kid right up to the President of the United States. What these companies are doing is a direct reflection on what our culture has become.

Consumers should have the right to view all information, not the info that companies want to be seen. I make sure that when I'm searching for info on a company I always put their name along with keywords like: complaints, refunds, bad service. I've never had a problem making a decision about a company after that. Typically they have 0-3 comments which isn't bad or they have pages, which I then steer clear from.

I don't like internet web sights to counteract ligitamate information that someone has to say about a company. There doesnt seem to be anywhere for people to go that have a ligitimate bitch about a company and to let the truth be heard to all. Companies thumb there nose at consumers bitch and do nothing to accomidate people and employees quite often.

Why don't these companies spend their hard-earned money on improving their reputation or quality, rather than just trying to suppress the negative image? If they have a lot of negative reviews, there's probably a good reason for it! They should be forced by our capitalist society to fix their problems, not hide them. As for the negative reviews themselves, the educated consumer has to thoroughly read those reviews for themselves and decide if the criticism was well-founded or not. I personally don't take much stock in a negative review for a product where the grammar of the author is horrible and they complained about not receiving their product at the correct location - it was probably their fault, not the company's. You can't make everyone happy, but if you have a good product, you shouldn't have to hide the negative. Use that information to your success. And if you can't, you need to step off the playing field.

Here's another strike against the common consumer who relies on internet "homework" to decide if he can do business with a company. Where can you go and get the full picture on a company who usually, aggressively lobbies for your money but you have no way to ascertain if this is another scam (like there's a new one out every day) and you will be taken, again....
If this is allowed to happen then no one's information is verifiable or true since you can wash or push the negative into oblivion and once again, information manipulation, you see what they want you to see.
Final line, we're all sitting ducks and heaven help us plus every man for himself.....

Why don't these companies spend their hard-earned money on improving their reputation or quality, rather than just trying to suppress the negative image? If they have a lot of negative reviews, there's probably a good reason for it! They should be forced by our capitalist society to fix their problems, not hide them. As for the negative reviews themselves, the educated consumer has to thoroughly read those reviews for themselves and decide if the criticism was well-founded or not. I personally don't take much stock in a negative review for a product where the grammar of the author is horrible and they complained about not receiving their product at the correct location - it was probably their fault, not the company's. You can't make everyone happy, but if you have a good product, you shouldn't have to hide the negative. Use that information to your success. And if you can't, you need to step off the playing field.

As a former attorney who's field of practice was Consumer Protection, this article has me considering whether such manipulation doesn't violate any number of consumer protection statutes.

What concerns me more, however, is the distinct possibility that, if company ratings can be manipulated in a positive direction, any number of public-spirited people could push the ratings in a negative direction. Programmers similar to those working in the field of virus-production may respond by devising algorithms that do just that, not only pushing ratings back where they originally were, but further into negative territory.

Quite the Pandora's box that could be opening up here.

It's a great sales pitch but in reality the offering of clearing up a poor performance history is a vague reality. In short the best way for a company to clean up a bad history is to announce a new CEO or management team and hype up the effects of that implementation. Additionally new policies and higher quality offerings are the key to keeping in touch with future partners and customers. Gauging the success of a campaign is not something and investor would take the time to do so your trust in the results would also be presented by the company selling this reputation repair service. Sites that offer free forums such as www.treasuresales.com don’t remove negative reports on a company if the post is publicly acceptable as clean material. The best way for you to improve your negative image is to address those concerns where they occur. For instance have an IT person spend a week or two visiting all the known places your company is mentioned and address specific concerns with new policies and an invitation for viewers to revisit your site or service for a new experience with your improved company offering.

Life is never fair. Spinning or trying to change bad images by manipulating information published by bloggers is a Bushism. Companies are responsible for offering a good product, service and when those products, services are deficient, people are going to try vent some displeasure with the company. And it might backfire if the public comes to find out that the company has its hands in the cookie jar. I rely on past experiences by others to find out the quality of a product. Now, if the blog is outright a lie, then it should be deleted, erased, by, please, no more spinning. With the spin this administration puts on every thing that it does, I'm becoming dizzy.

This is censorship, plain and simple in its worst form!

There's always going to be one or two people who feel like they've been slighted and use the internet for revenge, why should a business have to suffer because of someone's skewed view events?

The lesson people should learn from this is to conduct thorough research. Don't just scan the first page of Yahoo or Google results, go to the consumers union site and better business bureau. Take your time, read a lot and weed out the cranks so you can make an informed decision.

The problem is people can write anything about a person or a company and it can be a total lie. Their
is no accountability. They can distort facts. The same hold true about false positive statements. People
need to check reputable sources for information and
not the internet bathroom walls.

As an SEO strategist, I think you have to be careful what you promise. In our experience, there are only two ways to improve onine repuation, either encourage more positive feedback from happy consumers, or use fake profiles to create your own positive references to outnumber the negative ones. Clearly only one of these options is ethical, however, with a little bit of work, we generally find most clients have a happy customer base that is pleased to provide positive reviews if educated and encouraged. The short term gain from fake profiles and reviews can be disastorous if they are discovered and removed by the various online review sites. We find a little education (for both our clients and their customers) and encouragement usually does the trick.

Just another example of big business treating us like cattle. Here's the product, give us your money, now move along like good little cows (moo, moo, moo). They don't want to provide good customer service or even decent service. They just want your money. They kiss your butt until you pay them and then, poof! They're off like a prom dress. Remember that a free market economy means you have choices. You do get what you pay for! A little extra money is worth it if the company provides good customer service. Read the company's policies on returns and customer support and ask questions. Don't be part of the herd. Use your brain for something besides holding up your skull.

P.S. Sorry for the rant. Monday holdover.

Done! is a scam firm looking to hide bad information on any company that will pay them to do so. There is nothing legitimate about them. Negative reviews are a part of life. If your company is crap and gets bad reviews, you deserve it. And people should know it. You shouldn't be allowed to hide behind the fabrications of companies like Done!. They should be abolished.

Sounds maipulative...heck it is.....they are controlling what the american people see. Sensorship in the highest form. Someone should contact the US Attorney General....o I forgot we don't have one because he was of the same character

ewwww! Most intelligent consumers can distinguish between rants and legit ones like ConsumerWebWatch. I can see an opening here for a non-Google service specifically to support this kind of lookup.

We live in an era with unprecedented access to peer experiences with businesses, and this information informs us and forces companies to consider whether their behavior matches the image they try and portray.

I have the ability to filter our crazy rantings and make my own decision as to the validity of a complaint. The suppression of complaints by a company only serves to validate them in my opinion.

Worst idea ever! I spend alot of time researcing reviews before buying a product FOR the negative feedback, as well as the positive. With negative I can find out what they did to make things better in a bad transaction. With positive I can see how well they treat customers from the get go. Having this information on both sides just lets me know what i COULD expect. If they got negative feedback for a legit reason, I should be able to find out why. What do you think Ebay does?

I say that consumers have a RIGHT to blog about their experiences with a company. My blog, for example, does not editorialize, but states the facts of the customer's experience.

To blatantly steal a catchphrase from FOX News: "We report, YOU decide". :)

Forget big brother, He`s "Clown". What your back big Bizz is comming

Companies are wise to monitor their online image. And, they are wise to try and hide negative information. However, it is also wise for consumers to look beyond the first page of a search. While companies can push down the negative listings, they can't erase them.

What's wrong with this? The Left has been doing it the other way for years. What did they expect?

Sounds like an organized and profitable form of "Google Bombing." Perhaps companies should put more effort into quality and customer service, so they could spend less time later, "cleaning their reputations."

Gaming the system like this is wrong! Most intelligent people can read between the lines of negative comments and decide for themselves if the poster's negative comments are reasonable. One or two negative comments on a company do not justify a person to refuse to do business, but when there are dozens or even hundreds of negative comments (like for Bank of America), then it is unjust and immoral for someone to bury those comments for financial gain.

You have to keep tongue firmly in cheek when reading anything on the internet---just because it's there doesn't mean it's true. Scepticism is the best defence against fraud.

Bottom line: anyone who doesn't look further than the first 20-50 hits on a search will be doing themselves a great disservice.

I have to agree with Customer Service Man: Companies certainly can spin their PR anyway they want.

For example: XYZ Company claims "We are number 1, based on customer satiisfaction", yet, they don't provide those customer's name and phone numbers so that a consumer can actually verify the claim.

Although bloggers can be highly emotional, they very often post their feelings based on a really good or a really bad experience.

If XYZ company has ONE blogger who bad mouths them then perhaps that can discounted as a "one off" complaint. But, if their are dozens or hundreds of bloggers complaining about XYZ's company, then obviously there is something else going on.

A recent example is the controversy of Apple's iPhone. When Apple lowered the price, all virtuall hell broke loose. If a potential customer googled "iPhone", he may very well think twice about buying one, based on literally hundreds of bad blog posts.

Some companies have to stem negative attacks because a) a disgruntled employee spreading rumor and innuendo b) one customer out of 10,000 who takes it upon themselves to make sure that others find out about a bad experience and c) over-zealous and presumptive customers who have knee jerk reactions to certain situations.
Consumers should be made aware of bad companies and bad practices but it shouldn't be by the hands of websites who get their information from the above aformentioned examples...

Free Markets depend on the consumker being informed. Real Capitalists want the information to flow. Self interested creeps will block the flow, or make it inaccessable under a flood of information.

I just went through 7 search pages on MSNBC looking for the Consumer Reports Article about WebLoyalty.com.
The Webloyalty listings repeat themselves, and are about all there is. So if I use this search engine, I am captive to the firm's own PR, inspite of the fact that a respected, independent organization has criticized it online. SEO wins, and MSNBC either doesn't mind, or is way behind the deceit curve.

Sounds like the all mighty dollar of the companies trying to polish their tarnished reputations. But on the other hand, people should be HONEST in their comments that they post. One negative comment should not influence a decision to do business with a company; maybe just more research.

This is very disingenuous. The internet is a libertarian place, and if you have shoddy customer relations, people will make it known. All we need next is for a place like ConsumerWebWatch to publish a list of all of the clients of DONE! SEO so we know who not to do business with.

If I am to believe this company then shutting up consumers is how you "level the playing field". I do understand that some people will write nasty things about a company regardless of any good reason but most of the time a person does this to stop another person from being ripped off as they were.

Anytime I do business with a new company I always search for any entries about that company on the web. I have saved myself from being ripped off a few times by doing a few minutes of research.

Companies will not hire people if they don't like what they see online yet we are not allowed to do the same thing according to this company? Sounds like Communism to me!!!

This has been going on a long time everywhere including the political arena. Op eds are proliferated and erased by one side or the other. Like most of my dozens of opinion essays concerning the Bush administration were initially very readily available but are now erased or now I've noticed, they are doctored so that my handle appears with some other extremely inane opening sentence from someone else's opinion. Worrying about the system being gamed is like worrying about a bridge that has already collapsed. If nobody is proactive than everything is reactionary.

Protection of company's reputation is a must for a business to be successful. Annonymous posts can seriously damage a comapny's reputation and most businesses would prefer to resolve the situation with the consumer rather than attempt to rob them blind. Keeping a customer satisfied will keep the consumer coming back for more. Many consumers may not be satisfied with the outcome of their complaint against a company because they don't get everything that they want, even through the company may have gone well beyond what should have been offered to resolve the situation. The will post their gripe all over the internet to damage the comapny's reputation so it is only fair that the company has the right to combat these types of postings. Are these companies that promise to provide services to eliminate the complaints the way to go? That is up for specualtion. Perhaps companies should work on replying to the anonymous posts with thier side of the story without the release of consumer personal information and attempt to shed light on what really occured, or the companies guidelines for handling such complaints.

well some people are mean and will complain about anything, just to complain and make someone else's life miserable. I've seen it done. To all the business's out there that get a negative blog..take heart, I myself take that stuff with a grain of salt. If I have a complaint, I go directly to the company, deal with it and move on. Anything real bad and the authorities usually deal with it, other than that, usually things work themselves out in the end. To the negative bloggers, get over yourselves, something worse could be going on in your life, be thankful for what you have.

This is one reason why I use the Better Business Bureau site (http://www.bbb.org) for finding out about the validity/reputation of a company. Its a resource that cannot be buried. :)

Nice and hypocrite. After years of hiding behind the curtains of anonymous companies and fine-print defying common sense, companies now get upset when customers do the same?

Here's a tip: why not treat your customers decently, so nobody writes negative reviews, in stead of covering up the dirt?

This story in itself was a helluva read. Have heard of these companies that can change any companies reputation from bad to good regardless of how bad the client company's reputation is and regardless of how badly the client company's have treated the consumer.
Google's apparent lax overview of this sort of activity regarding individual privacy concerns only goes hand in hand with other companies such as Monster.com who recently was hacked into and thousands of consumer's information was exposed to whoever. Google would probably take the same approach as Monster did by informing their clients several weeks after the fact on the invasion.
Don't know what needs to happen. Individual privacies are all at risk since the coming of age with the internet.

First, consumers should/can/will learn to add search words that will find any negative reviews.

One of our companies is an online merchant in a market that only has about five serious competitors. A few years ago one of those five started a negative posting campaign on all their competition. (They were also ripping off Apple but that's another story)

Some of those fabricated negative postings are STILL haunting the target companies.

Plus, as Padno pointed out, people vary in what they consider good service. The customer who places an order at 6pm and complains that it has not shipped by 6:30pm is also more likely to go to one of the complaint sites.

There is not a perfect solution at this point. is est quis is est.

Just like the last comment in the article, consumers need fair information to make good choices. The business world is chock full of companies that do fraud their customers- i.e. Sprint. What are consumers going to do about it? Fight back.
As far folks being negative just for the sake of being negative, I think it's important to list in detail what your complaint was, and then let the readers be the judge. (for example, I certainly wouldn't penalize a hotel just because I didn't like the color of the curtains!)
I just bookmarked all 3 pro-consumer websites onto my computer and you can bet I'll go back and see what is said about which companies. It may not be the end all be all, but I certainly consider the information. You have to be a savvy consumer in today's world, or you'll just get ripped off. Businessses have an army of folks working for the, we have these pro-consumer websites, what's the problem "DONE SEO?????" (dumb name by the way)

One thing this country overly conerns itself with is "image". In fact, it would seem we are more concerned with our image than we are with anything of real substance.

This is not surprising in a country that is primarily service based, where companies promise you the moon until you take the bait. Once on the hook, then all that glittering promise of service seems to be quickly forgotten.

Of course, the catch-22 in it all is our advances in technology. World-wide instant communication and new-fangled "personal" computing and communications devices have played a large roll in dehumanizing us. All the world is a stage...and now, we all are players on it...instantly. So much for our "15 minutes of fame"...we now have the option of picking and choosing when and where...and as often as we like.

Well done SEO!

said Ben Padnos, CEO of DONE! SEO. “We're trying to level the playing field."

Baloney. The user sites were created to "level the playing field". This company's sole purpose is to re-stack it solidly in the favor of some businesses that engage consistently in bad business practices. Period.

"In a lot of cases people take so much glee in negativity,"...

Spoken like a true, professional propagandist. Fact is, by the time you have been turned upside down and had your pockets emptied by a company that has lied to you and then generally blew you off...repeatedly...yes, there may be some glee involved in spreading the word. That is not a crime... that truly is "leveling the playing field". Or at least as close as we are able to get.

This is so simple to overcome, since a search engine runs a query to match all words, rate it by relevancy to the search and then by most hits, all you have to do is add the word "complaints" when you want to do an internet background check.

Since all this company does is generate visits to a favorable website until it ranks high, by adding "complaints," you can guarantee that their software did not up the hits to these sites as well, you will remove all the nonsense.

Of course, consumers are the number one reason our economy is the way it is. Since there is no personal accountability anymore.

If the companies are forced to show that the "positive" information was purchased, that would make it fair. In the same regard, blog sites usually have a disclaimer that shows the remarks are made by private citizens. If a company is willing to spend all that money to have a firm "fix" its image, why don't they just improve their customer service? Wouldn't that be a better business strategy in the long term? telling little "white" lies will always come back to bite you in the end.

Kudos man. I've been using this techniqe myself for years. Want to buy from a new online store but aren't 100% comfortable doing so? Do a search first. You'd be suprised at the number of stores that I'd be turned away from by lousy customer service complaints alone. My thoughts are, if they have unhappy customers they aren't doing a good job. Sure there are always one or two that you can never please, but if google has dozens of pages warning me away - I listen. Hey, I know for me if I take the time to write up a complaint it was much more than pink drapes that turned me off. It's about time these fools fall to the immediate info we can now get. If you're a bad business, the informed consumers will avoid you. Then again, there's a lot of uninformed consumers to prey on - thankfully I'm not one of them.

The internet levels our playing field, and companies like Done! SEO are just taking the businesses money for promises they can't keep. Googles propriatary algorythms are at best a guess to the brightest reverse-engineers, so exactly what makes this company able to fufill the promises they make on their site? Obviously it didn't work on Google for WebLoyalty, and to be honest does anyone use MSN besides those who still have their default windows IE page? I like that, those who did the ripping off will get ripped off.

I'll file that website with the cheap@cialis.com emails I keep getting. In the JUNK pile!

Hey, great article. How do I get a hold of the DONE! SEO guys? You didn't link to their site.

I absolutely do not trust a company like Done!SEO to manage itself and abide by the "rules" if there are big $$$ involved. As if they would not go that little extra step over the line if a million dollar account was going to walk because negative comments appeared on a Google first page. They have no loyalty except to their business. People need to become more adept at searching out good, salient, responsible comments to fight this type of manipulation.

This makes me mad! How about providing excellent customer service and products - then a company wouldn't have to employ a service like this!!!!!

Maybe the solution is for these companies to spend money upgrading customer service and treating customers with respect and goodwill rather than spend money trying to cover up. Then they won't have to worry about showing up on these sites in the first place.

You have to take what you find in search engines with a grain of salt. When I was researching info for a technical journal, I had to filter through hundreds of articles posted on the web. Much of the information was either inaccurate or blatantly wrong. Some of the info given was dangerous to implement.

If you get ripped off by a company that DONE! SEO has wiped clean of any negative feedback, can the consumer then sue DONE!SEO for any lost money?

I think they should. In my eyes, DONE! SEO has then become an accomplice to fraud.

I think services that can lessen the negative effects from sites like rip-off report should be welcomed with open arms. I am a small business and a victim of an internet predator that used the rip-off report site to attempt to sabotage my business. The predator was a rival business, yet claimed to be someone who had been personally wronged by me. The same predator also hit several other competitors using the same site, going so far as to call one owner a rapist and another a child pornographer. When searching our businesses individually, it would come up a top hit on search engines.

There is NO recourse against these sites. The postings are obviously false when seen together as a group (for instance, written one after another by someone with same writing style/misspellings in the same narrative while claiming to be different people). However, they come up individually under a Google search. Oh, and contacting these sites like rip-off report are futile as the owners turn a blind eye as they love controversy more than truth.

After being attacked, you feel helpless. I sent off HUNDREDS or letters and complaints to different internet organizations, attorney generals, search engines including Google, and got almost zero response. I contacted a couple lawyers who told me it would cost $50,000 minimum to MAYBE get the post removed because that is the state on internet libel today. As a small business, I cannot afford that. Further, sites like rip-off report have a dozen lawsuits already pending. But the site is still up for years.

The debate here needs to be altered. It is not just a question of the company verses the consumer and bad ratings. It is the company versus internet predators and sabotage. Reporters like Arnold Diaz from Fox frighteningly still recommend these sites, and this needs to be stopped. Companies that can fight these sites or lessen the impact are amazing and should be welcomed.

I suggest if you have a bad experience with a company then blog to the Better Busness Beareau. That way it wont get buried. It's time for the BBB to come into the new mellinium with reguards to business complaints.

Consumers need to be able to do good, honest research on companies. Not all complaints are just complaints for the sake of complaining, some are actually legit. People need to be able to find them and make intelligent decisions.

I'd love to know how they distinguish between bad apples (mean-spirited posters,) & valid complaints by mistreated customers. The answer, of course, is that they don't--anything negative will be repressed. So much for the 1st Amendment. *snort* Amerika; Land of the Fee & Home of the Slave.

The complaint here seems to be that people can make complaints anonymously. I find it interesting that people advocating these practices posted anonymously. LoL I wonder how many of these positive responses to DONE were written by DONE itself. Please believe if they will do it for other companies, they are most certainly doing it for themselves. For instance, the post above mine speaking to a rival company, why post anonymously? I don't know about you, but when I feel wronged by a company, I want them to know it was me that made the postings. I want them to be aware when a customer says, "if you don't fix this, I will make sure others know of my experience" that the customer means it. Fear not, companies like DONE will just spurn people equally dedicated to lessening their impact. I mean, they show the limits of their "savvy" by being dumb enough to participate in an article exposing their practice. Hey, morons, you worked because we didn't know you were working. Now we do, so now we do something about it. What we need is a website that lists companies who employ reputation manufacturers. Then we need to avoid these companies on principle. A company interested in more than the bottom line welcomes negative feedback, because it points out weaknesses in their business model. A good company does what it can to satisfy displeased customers. Of course, there are people you cannot please, but the vast majority have reasonable gripes and deserve a remedy. In the past, companies have been able to ignore unhappy customers but no longer.

Isn't it funny that a company would rather pay 10s and hundreds of thousands of dollars to DONE than replace a defective $200 piece of merchandise or god forbid say they are sorry and ask "what can we do to make you happy sir?" Some companies understand that pleasing your customer is the cheapest way to grow your repuation and your bottom line. Others cut corners in their customer service and their product, so it makes sense that they would cut corners in this aspect as well. On that note, big props to Apple and At&T for refunding the money on Iphones after their price drop. THAT'S customer service. Instead of telling their customers to suck it up and then paying DONE to scrub the inevitable negative posts, they practiced GOOD BUSINESS and in so doing, created customer loyalty.

My names is Marsden Bigby. I am not an anonymous poster. I stand behind my opinions, positive and negative.

This doesn't exactly fit your story, but I know personally that companies pay attention to bad reviews on the Internet:

After my 3-yr-old $6000 Trane Heat pump failed, the best response I could get out of their regional representative was "Although it is most unusual for one of our systems to fail this prematurely, we're sorry to have to remind you that your heat pump is out of warranty and there's nothing more we can do".

I spent a few hours creating an AOL member page explaining my side of the story and included a scan of their letter saying I would have to pay for the repairs myself. I contacted Trane again and gave them the URL. Within a week I had a check from Trane which covered part (but not all) of the repair bill.

The misperception is that the consumer is less important than the merchant and is also worthy of the truth. If we had the same whitewash available to hide bad credit reports, there'd be a blue ribbon senate panel to investigate.

The free market machine only works well when both the merchant and the consumer are up front and honest. Anything short of that and the system is bound to fail.

So companies are making it harder to find out when they've been caught doing something wrong, or had a product recall, or any other non-flattering piece, and every consumer group cries foul because it's supposedly misleading consumers.

It misleads those consumers who are so lazy that they will only spend 5 seconds doing what should take 5 minutes.

As for the consumer advocates who cry foul, I'm sure, back when they were dating, they were all upfront and forward with every flaw they had when seeking dates, and didn't seek to hide or sugarcoat any of their flaws.

If Google is so great why do they sponsor the terrible company www.tvboxset.com? Ask the hundreds of customers, just a few of whom have posted on eopinions, most of whom ordered and never received their orders. This company apparently has been working under many aliases from what I can find.

I just did a search for Mr Bush and the first 10 pages of results were saying good things about Mr Bush. He must have just joined up.

Search on " scam", or fraud", and no attempts at "scrubbing" will prevent you from finding serious consumer complaints if they are somewhere on the net.

If this company wants to take money from others that can't treat their customers right, it will still make little difference in accessibility to complaints.

No Problem. Now I know to start my reading several pages into the search results instead of starting on the front page. Before I buy anything on EBay I make it a point to find and read any negative feedback left for a given seller before I purchase, and it's pretty easy to tell a legitimate issue from a nit-picking gripe, so I'll just employ the same tactic to looking companies up on Google. In this day & age of e-commerce, Caveat Emptor reigns supreme. Doing your homework will greatly reduce your risk of dealing with shady business, it's just too bad that there are spin doctor creeps out there like Done! that are making it more difficult.

So what keeps DONE! SEO from posting negative infomation about a company only to then advertise their services to the company?

Done! and similar companies are counting on internet users to be supremely lazy and not dig for information. If it exists, you can find it. Just depends on the user. To those who fret that Done! is not playing by the rules, you might want to read those RULE$ again. And if you believe companies treat customers like so many cattle, try taking off the bell, Bessie. Behave like dumb cattle, and you both enable and encourage companies like Done! to lead you around by the nose.

As a hotelier I know for a fact that my hotel has been given negative comments from other local competitors anonymously.

Any person that would make a judgmental decision based on mouse-clicking and what they found on a "search engines" is a person I have no interest in doing business with.

It appears to me that there is an underlying assumption that people in general take information as-is and do not do research before making a decision. But then again, maybe that explains why we have foreclosures on $600,000 homes against people who only made $50,000 a year...

Let us not forget of the customers, who in their own rite are never wrong. Every person, at one time or another has had to defend themselves for no other reason than anothers opinion. Sometimes doing the right thing does not result in the fair response. Companies are at the mercy of negative publicity by their accusers and often people who just want to be destructive. It is not always fair for the consumer, but it is also not always fair for the company. These companies should have the opportunity to protect themselves just as any consumer should have the opportunity to protect themselves. Customer service is big business and can mean big profits or losses to their respected companies. Even companies should be allowed to protect themselves and their reputations from unregulated postings and random web sites built in their honor. If you want to know about a companies true reputation, check with your local BBB (Better Business Bureau)

Spoken truth, Read it, postrd by;

Bryan, Richmond, VA (Sent Sep 11, 2007 8:48:59 AM)

DITTO !

Great thread and comments everyone. We appreciate My3cents.com being mentioned in the article as one of the "pro-consumer" sites.

We thought it would be helpful to mention features we have been building at My3cents.com that can significantly help companies improve their consumer reviews. We have always had a tool for companies to log in and post a response to any of their reviews, but we are now adding new features that will enable companies to:

1. Present a resolution option before a user writes/publishes a negative review on your company.

Companies specify a contact person (name, e-mail and phone) who is able to help resolve the customer's complaint. We will offer this information to the consumer before they write a negative review. Of course, this will not prohibit the consumer from writing a review, but it may deter many customers to give the company another chance before publishing their review online because it shows that the company cares.

2. Update consumer review meta information and title to reflect the positive outcome of resolved reviews.

We are currently building a mechanism to turn a bad review into a not-so-bad review. When the company works with the consumer to resolve the problem, the consumer can then mark the review as "resolved". This, in turn, will trigger a change to the web page title and meta information to focus on the new positive outcome. This more positive title and meta information is what commonly gets seen in search engine result pages and can help successfully turn bad buzz into good buzz.

We are also building some notification tools to allow companies to setup alerts and get notified via e-mail when consumers talk about their company or products. This will further help connect consumers to companies, and hopefully create a win-win situation in the long run for all parties involved.

Why would anyone need a reputation scrubber if they actually made an honest attempt to do the right thing? It seems to me like they're trying to use the high tech version of 'shouting down' their critics.

This feels like a case of the guy that yells the loudest ( in this case, one source providing thousands or maybe millions of responses) drowning out the voices of thousands or millions of individual reports. Another comparison might be Mr. John Q. Public trying to bring a lawsuit against the American Bar Association.

Maybe it's time for some regulation of the scrubbers and their clients.

Scrubbing? You want to see scrubbing? Go to the New York Times Web site. It doesn't particularly matter which day, but today it is a photo of Gen. Petraeus giving testimony before Congress. Right in the middle of the photo, looking all serious and stern is Hillary CLinton;s mug. Now, I'm a Democrat and this shouldn't bother me, but it does. Every stinking day, the Times has her face plastered all over their front page, usually accompanied by some puff piece story. It's like they are a part of her paid campaign! Hey, NYT, there are *OTHER* Democrats running for the Presidency!!! There are even some Republican's. At least TRY and show a little journalistic integrity...

I think after almost three decades of de-regulation we have learned that capitalist markets are NEVER about competition based on price and quality unless government steps in to force them to be so. Instead they are about grabbing the biggest, fastest, dirtiest buck they can, anyway they can. Fooling the consumer is the prefered tool.

LOL...so companies are, in effect, paying for googlebombing. That's amusing me to me. I think that that DONE! SEO is pretty lame, but hey, if they can charge a pretty penny what any company with a secretary who can type can get for "free", more power to them. Of course, any consumer with two brain cells doesn't just search a company's name, they tack on 'scam', 'fraud', 'complaints' or any other negative word to pull up what they want to find. Maybe I'll start a company called EVEN DONER! that's googlebomb googlebombs. I'm be a bajillionaire! LOL.

I have posted a negative experience with McAfee on ripoffreport.com. I posted the experience just as it occurred. Even though the company could have responded, they did not, as all my facts were true and they know it. It would be totally unethical for them to try to bury my comments just as it would have been unethical for me to not post this experience for other consumers to evaluate for themselves. To dismiss the voice of the consumer as "disgruntled rantings" is demeaning to the American public.

I understand that Bob Sullivan’s blog touched a nerve, but I hope people offended by our business will least attempt to partially understand our side of the story.

Many of the comments include sweeping generalizations that just aren’t true. Yes, we are a for-profit company. However, before accepting new engagements, we do a thorough review of all of our clients and make it a policy not to take on truly nefarious individuals or companies.

What many people don't understand is that blogs or sites like RipOffReport.com often get priority placement in Google due to the way the search engine ranks sites. And in some cases, just ONE disgruntled customer can absolutely wreak havoc on an individual or business. How do you know our clients don’t try to make the situation right, offering refunds or other make-goods? How do you know if the angry customer(s) were being reasonable in the first place? How do you know it’s not competitors attempting sabotage? Again, I think many of the negative comments about our services contain strong assertions without fully considering the other side.

All we try to do is give our clients access to first-page coverage in the search engines so their side of the story is visible. We play a role in "democratizing" the search results.

Companies use numerous methods to create awareness for their company. Search Engine Marketing, including organic Search Engine Optimization and Pay-Per-Click Advertising, are key elements in an overall strategy. While our clients do their absolute best to deliver value to their customers, there are occasions when a small number of people are unhappy. The web offers a great forum for those people to post their comments -- good and bad. And since most of these comments go un-checked or un-monitored, it's important that our clients get “equal time”.

That’s where we come in.

Search Engine Reputation Management is similar to the very standard practice of hiring a PR firm – it helps portray a company in as positive light as possible. As do advertising campaigns and other marketing and publicity efforts.

I'm sure my comments won't change many of your opinions, but I appreciate the time everyone took to post, even if you think negatively of my firm.

Web scrubbing is ultimately futile. Why? Because the "invented" content buries ALL legitimate web references, not just negative references. So when consumers do a Google search, they see only bogus "happy talk" booster yak. Press release gibberish. That will not help a company. Another problem: consumers will adapt to the new strategies, and will perceive a lack of objective content as proof of manipulation. You heard it here first, folks: reputation management is reputation suicide.

If anyone is conducting research on a conpany or business, and find the results to be a bit suspect, you can register with the Better Business Bureau and find out the real truth, because there's no white washing anything on their web site. Hope this bit of information help some consumers.

I didn't see this mentioned above, so thought it worth adding. Don't forget to search for COMPANY NAME = "sucks". Lots of interesting stuff. Great article.

Most search engines use number of links as a ranking parameter. An easy way to counter DONE! SEO's trick is to exclude cyclic links from ranking algorithm. For that matter, exclude cross refs for clusters of sites. Then they can create as many sites and pages as they want, but it won't count. I really don't trust sites that has a banner tool to add a link of your site in exchange for you add a link to their site.

There are so many good comments above, that I just reiterate what most people say…do your homework, be thorough, and if you’re a company, clean up your mess. It’s kindergarten 101, for pete’s sake.

These scrubbing companies think they’re criminal defense lawyers on the net…they think everybody deserves a shot at clearing their name, guilty or not (and better not to know), but most everybody else just thinks they’re slimy. If a company has enough bad reports at ripoffreport.com to affect their search engine results, they’re doing something shady and deserve the negative press. If it’s only a few, who cares? Just write some good buzz and take charge in a positive way. Stop trying to run from your problems by blaming someone else and hiding your tracks…face up to them

It is tough trying to number the hours we've spent looking for lawyer info.