Having spend the majority of class time so far on SEO, I thought I would talk about reputation management. Though only 1 point amongst many, this is a REALLY important one considering that social commentary, be it through blog postings or reviews, is having a larger and larger effect on page rank. For many sites, this is good. They don't have the history or traffic to beat out the plethora of other sites out there so simple things like reviews on Yelp can give them share of voice they may not otherwise have had. For some sites, this is very bad.
Putting aside for a moment whether reviews are true or not, imagine the case of a doctor who happens to see 1 patient that happens to be very hard to please and very vocal on the internet, and suddenly this review shows up under his/her name search. Sure, the medical professional community is getting more savvy re: technology and the ways in which to leverage it, but let's not kid ourselves...we're asking people with very little time, and a completely different focus, to acquire skills for the internet that they may not have the desire, time, or capability for.
Ok, so fine, their environment has changed and now they must adapt. What if they don't have the budget to hire an SEO professional? What if they are busy saving kids in India? What if they simply can't beat the bad review? Is it ethical for them to have patients sign a mutual privacy agreement that prevents patients from blogging about their experience? I know your reaction is no, freedom of speech, but I ask you to just think how quickly reputation can be damaged over a lifetime's investment, and what if it is not true?? Search engines have made this possible overnight...how do we combat this?
Personal anecdote - I have a friend who got divorced and someone wrote some very false and reputation damaging things on a hate website, that now shows up when you search his name, and there is nothing he can do about it.
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