By now almost everyone is aware that you can find almost anything on Google including things that you may not want potential clients or employers to see (whether it is true or not). There have been a number of posts discussing reputation management and how negative information on Google can hurt your reputation to potential clients.
One way to combat negative listings is the pre-emptive strike. I was reminded of this by the recent story about Miss New Jersey. It seems that the recent Miss New Jersey winner, Amy Polumbo had a press conference announcing that she is being blackmailed. Apparently someone has some private pictures of her and threatened her that they would release them to the public if she did not resign her crown. Instead of ignoring it and hoping nothing would happen she went on the offensive and held a press conference about it. Miss New Jersey and Amy Polumbo are the top two search terms on Google today. This pre-emptive strike will make it much more difficult for other sites to gain high positions in Google rankings because her side of the story is going to be blogged about and the blogs the countless news outlets will take the top positions. I assume that her main reason for making the public announcement was rooted in traditional media but it will have an effect on her online reputation.
Another example of a post-emptive (is that actually a word) online reputation management effort is what Britney Spears did a while back. Many in the search industry believe that Britney shaving her head was not necessarily because she lost her mind but it was a reaction to the less than flattering pictures of her in a limo with Paris Hilton. I tend to agree with them that she shaved her head so the news sites and blogs would pick it up and write about it. Thus moving the sites discussing her shaved head above the sites discussing her other shaved area. Britney Spears shaved was a hot keyword phrase for a while and eventually the less than flattering pics were replaced by the discussion of her shaving her head (although not flattering either they were better than what was showing up previously).
These are two examples of reputation management that can be applied on a smaller scale to anyone who has negative information about them online. Of course not everyone has willing press to listen to them and get the story out everyone can write a blog or become active in forums. Get your side of the story out, combat erroneous negative information, and just keep an eye on what is being said about you. By being proactive you can beat the negative information to the punch and dominate the top SERP rankings and push the negative down. You may not be able to get rid of it but if you keep it off the first few pages hardly anyone will ever see it.
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