Sphinn - So what if you are a brand new business! You Need to Think About Your Reputation..

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So what if you are a brand new business! You Need to Think About Your Reputation..

Went Hot: December 12, 2007 - 10:28 pm
Posted By: chriswinfield 571 days ago
Topic Type: News Story (Jump to http://www.97thfloor.com)
Category: SEO

The reason a majority of the major businesses online have a reputation management problem is because they did nothing to combat it from the start. Lets face it, the bigger bigger you get, the more people you are going to have that want to bring you down.

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from SearchBuzz 571 days ago #

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"Go and buy all the domain names that you can with your brand name in it.....Then write unique content for each one of the domains, and provide product information,"

What is the strategy here pertaining to rep. management? So others can not hijack like domains?

Wouldn't it be wiser to purchase and 301 to primary?

Good post...

from jonhenshaw 570 days ago #

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Good entry, but I'm with SearchBuzz regarding the domain strategy. If you're paranoid, buy the domains to protect your brand, but do 301s to the main domain. If you're going to write good content, it should be in one place.

from MattSiltala 570 days ago #

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Hey guys, thanks for the comments,

Normally I would 301 the extra domains (.nets, .biz etc) to the main site, but this was just a suggestion (one of many different ways if you needed) to help you build additional sites (with your brand name in them) that could fill up the SERPs when people type in your name. If you 301 all of the domains you will only get one result in the search engine (the main URL) but what I suggested can help you dominate for your brand with your content.

Again, I am not saying you have to do this every time, it was just a suggestion (or one strategy) if you feel you are going to need it.

But I would agree that in most cases you will just do the normal 301s to those extra domains. As far as preventing someone from hi-jacking your name through these other domains - YES, you do that so nobody buys those domains from under you, and creates negative or competing content with the risk of customers thinking its you! (that is just good reputation management too) I hope this clears up what I was suggesting in my post!

Thanks for the Sphinn!

from mike.tekula 570 days ago #

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I'd have to agree with SearchBuzz and jonhenshaw above. Buying up domains and publishing a bunch of content at each one to try and "buy up" the serps just sounds spammy to me. It's also hard enough to put together one good web site with solid content - are you going to put together ten?

I see how you could do it, but I don't think I'd ever recommend it to anyone or do it myself.

Also, someone who is going to actively try using your brand in a domain to beat you out for a branded search is toeing, in some cases even crossing, the line on trademark infringement.

I'd recommend buying domains that are close to yours - maybe the closest 8-10 domains - and 301ing them all to the main domain. If it's about reputation management I don't think it's going to do you much good to have 10 domains with spammy content on page one of the SERPs - that seems counterproductive to me. Better to have one domain show up in position #1 with high quality content.

from 97thfloor 570 days ago #

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It depends on the site/case. If you are a large company and you used to use sub domains to dominate your name, IE Google, eBay all that, you may want to look your other domains to plan for the future when sub domains start to be treated like folders.

Also in cases where you have stubborn pages that you don't want ranking in the top ten you may have to pull out the exact domains as they are sure fire ways to get rid of really stubborn negative pages.

Look at the search result for 97th Floor in google, way back when before I new what would happen with my company I forgot to buy all the .net's all that, only like 3 months after starting my company, when I went to buy them all .net was taken by a girl that was starting a home made clothing line with the same name. It has no seo and it is number 2. Im buying the domain now, but I am not going to 301 it. I will put up a simple place holder that links to our blog, our tools all of that and keep it in the number 2 spot. I haven't flooded the results with my .org's and all that cause I don't have good use for them personally, but it can be smart for some companies.

You can use one of the domains for a place to talk about chairties or other outside work that you do. Or about other branches of your company. Mat was suggesting it cause we have done rep management for very large companies with undesirable pr 5's and 6's ranking in the top 5 for their name, and most of the time the exact domain is the best way to clean it up asap.

from Jimmy 569 days ago #

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I dont agree with some of the comments that its better to have one domain show up in the #1 position. The whole point about reputation management revolves around what a searcher sees in the search results when they search with your brand. It all well and good if #1 is your home site but their eyes will scan the other listings. If #2 shows negative details about a court case your have been involved with then it may affect whether they actually visit your site or in fact whether they will ever do business with you.

The aim for reputation management is not so much to buy a bunch of domains and fill them with spammy content but rather to make use of all your web oppertunities and make sure that they are search engine friendly and rank for your brand name. If you are focused on only one property then you are putting your business at risk. You need to proactivly manage your space. The majority of reputation problems I have been involved with have resulted for adverse competitor action. As the article suggests its better to proactivly deal with this rather than having to repair your reputation which is a whole lot more complicated.