It is always a bad situation when a business owner goes online a discovers that his business has a lot of negative content and negative Google search results associated with it on the internet. But how do you remove negative content from Google search?
Every person who has an online business is working hard in order to bring success to his brand and additionally every business owner is paying attention to keeping his customers satisfied with his services and products.
You will need to understand that we are living in the age of information and customers are feeling the need to leave their opinions in form of online reviews, or comments about someone’s business or service. It doesn’t matter how hard you try, there is always someone who will not be satisfied and will leave negative reviews about your services.
Why Do People Leave Bad Reviews Online?
Sometimes these comments or reviews are justified because in some situations omission can happen no matter how hard we try. However, on the other side, we also have people who will leave bad comments or reviews even if they didn’t have any experience with your services and they are doing it just to harm your business.
In some situations, you will see your ex-workers leaving bad comments or reviews about your business as an act of revenge but also you can expect some of your competitors to leave negative comments in order to cripple your business.
You shouldn’t worry much because there are a lot of strategies and techniques that you can use in order to remove those negative comments, reviews, or articles from the internet space. These strategies are primarily used by Online Reputation Management companies who are able to help you in case you want to remove negative content from the internet but you don’t have time or you don’t have enough skill to do it.
What is a negative search result or negative content on the internet?
Any webpage in the search results that gives out negative or false information about an individual or whole business is considered a negative search result. These negative search results tend to damage the online reputation of any individual or business and can finally lead to big losses in revenue and also have the potential to bankrupt a whole company completely.
Taking care of your online reputation means that you need to put the effort into removing or suppressing this negative content. As we already mentioned, if you consider doing it on your own you will be able to find very useful information in this article, however, if you don’t have time or enough skills you can always pay an online reputation management company so they can fix this problem for you.
These ORM companies are not only going to help you remove the negative content from the internet space but they will be able to keep an eye on future updates and any bad content that can appear online in the future.
Why you should remove negative content from the internet?
Removing negative content from the internet is the first and most important step you should take when trying to protect your online footprint. Whatever people see about your company online will have a huge impact on their perception of your business.
This means if they see any negative results linked with your company they are going to form a bad opinion about your business and the chances they are going to use your services or buy your goods can become very low.
When you discover that 65% of people are forming their opinion based on what they are going to find in search results you can understand why people are stressing out so much about bad content floating on the internet about their company or brand.
You need to know that some reliable statistics are showing that Google is controlling 93% of search engine traffic, and 90% of those people are looking only at the first page of search results and they are forming their opinion from the information they are going to get from the first Google search page.
Knowing these percentages people developed methods to deal with the content that cannot be completely removed from the internet. With the reverse SEO method, these results are getting suppressed and pushed off of the first google search page, to the next pages where only a low percentage of people are looking.
First, we are going to see how these negative results can impact your business and why it is important to remove the negative content from the internet as soon as possible, and later we will write about the methods and how can you delete or suppress negative content from the internet.
Reverse SEO to Remove Negative Content From Google Search
One example of the techniques these companies are using is the reverse SEO method. It is similar to classic SEO (search engine optimization) which uses techniques in order to make your brand and business more visible on web search engines similar to Google.
The reverse SEO method does the opposite because it uses techniques to make a particular web page less noticeable and this is one of the main strategies that ORM (online reputation management) companies are using in order to suppress negative search results associated with your brand or services on the internet.
While we talk about suppression and removal you need to know that these two are the main strategies when dealing with negative content on the internet that is related to you. Depending on the situation you will need to decide what kind of approach you will have in order to remove negative content from the internet.
In some situations, it is not possible to remove negative search results and you will need to use the reverse SEO method and suppress those bad results. But in situations when it is possible to remove that negative content, it is always a better option and idea to entirely remove the content from the internet.
In this article, we will talk about bad content on the internet and how it can affect your business but also we will give your more information and different methods on how to remove negative content from the internet. Stay tuned!
Remember that your online reputation is very important!
People that keep a track of their online content are aware of how much online reviews can matter when it comes to building a professional brand image. You need to know that 90% of users are making their own internet research before they decide to use your service or purchase some of your goods.
This means a single bad review has the potential to ruin your online reputation and can make your potential customers go with some of your competitors instead of you.
As we already mentioned 65% of internet users trust the information they find on Google SERPs and if they find bad content related to you they will probably form a bad opinion about your business right from the start.
It doesn’t really matter if those statements, reviews, or comments are true or false, people will believe them because “If it’s on the internet, it must be true!” way of thinking. In other words, if those people are able to find a lot of pages with negative content, you will be in big trouble.
Many business owners think it is unfair that defamatory or fake reviews are capable of doing so much damage and ruining someone’s online reputation. You need to know that many things in life are not fair and all you can do at this point is to man up and deal with your problems. We are going to give you the necessary information and tools for you to overcome this problem easier.
How negative content can damage your business?
Job applicants
Did you ever experience a situation where a job applicant decided not to join your company after everything else was sorted out?
Maybe he got a better offer from other companies because people are usually joining companies who offer them better conditions and better salaries. But also there is a chance they found negative search engine results related to your company on a job recruitment sites.
According to some research, there are popular websites like Glassdoor that people visit in order to get informed about a particular brand or company. On this website, you will be able to find reviews and comments about companies and businesses made by their former, current, and prospective staff. There is information that more than 70% of job seekers are checking out Glassdoor reviews before they make a decision to join a company and start working there.
Reviews and comments that are placed on this website are not always true, and you can find a lot of fake comments or reviews that are written as an act of revenge by former employees. However, they could still affect applicants’ and business partners’ perceptions of your business and can make potential applicants lose their interest in joining your company.
Even if we put the relevance of those reviews on the side, they will still be able to make a poor reflection on your company. Because of this reason, it should be imperative to take some action and try to remove this negative content from the internet space.
This can work either way
From a personal aspect, negative content on the internet is able to ruin your chances of getting hired. Nowadays a big number of recruiters are doing their research before they decide to hire someone to work in their company.
This means if recruiters are able to find negative content about you on the internet the chances you will get a job are very low. If you find any negative content about you on the internet be sure that you deal with it before it ruins your reputation and your chances to find a job.
Negative content ruins online reputation
After you understand the potential that negative content related to you on the internet has, you will know why it is crucial for you to keep a great online reputation.
It doesn’t matter if those comments are going to be based on truth or not, they will affect your audience’s perception and may discourage them from using your services or buying your products.
When we talk about digital marketing it is very important to have the trust of your targeted audience. That means you will need to assure them of the quality of your services and products.
Harming Client Relations
If your company is dealing with negative content on the internet and you keep your clients exposed to that negative content frequently it could damage your existing relations and it can make your business partners lose their trust in your company. This can have even bigger effects on the people that are just starting their business and are in a growing phase.
This means you will need to keep an eye on the content related to you that appears on the internet to be positive so you can expand your clientele and retain existing relations.
Removing negative content from Google search
Most of the people that find bad reviews, defamatory comments, or negative google searches related to them individually or their business would like to remove them from the internet space as soon as possible. For those reviews and comments that can be removed from the internet, you will need to keep an eye out so they don’t appear on the internet searches again.
Removing negative search results and defamatory comments from the internet will additionally break all the links that are associated with your business or brand. This means, there will be no comments left that may cripple your business success.
You will need to know that you can remove negative content from the internet only if it’s going against Google’s privacy policy or against the law. This is mentioned mostly because the negative content usually can be found on different websites on the internet that you don’t own.
Removing bad content from pages and websites that you don’t own can be a tricky job and we will try to help you in that process with some suggestions on how to remove negative content from third-party websites.
Removing negative content from third-party websites
When you go for removing negative content that is added on a third-party website you will need to locate the main source where original harmful content was posted. Once you make the first step and you sort out this issue you will need to use the same process and try to discover any additional sources of negative content that are related to your brand or business.
In order to carefully monitor all the negative content that can appear on the internet, it will be best for you to make use of Google Alerts.
After the monitoring process is done, you will need to take the next step and get in touch with the owners of sites that have negative content posted about your business.
Try to contact webmasters directly
In these situations, you shouldn’t try to contact Google directly because they do not create content and are not responsible for any third-party websites that are posting negative content related to you.
This method is for removing negative content from third-party websites and once you discover the main source of negative and defamatory content you have an option to contact the webmasters directly.
Throughout this process, you will need to remain calm especially while you are talking to the webmasters. We suggest this because webmasters are not obligated to remove the content especially if it’s based on facts, doesn’t contain any fake news, and it’s not going against Google privacy policy rules.
In situations like this you will need to be polite and patiently explain why that negative content should be removed from the internet.
Reporting websites that violate Google Policies
Websites that are breaking the rules and publish content that is considered vindictive, defamatory, or content that reveals sensitive information about any individual can be reported to Google.
Any content that reveals personal and sensitive information about someone can be reported to Google and this content is getting de-indexed and removed from internet searches. In case you discover any content that reveals your personal information (full name, birthday, phone number, home address, email address, or bank account details) feel free to report it to Google so they can remove it.
More info about negative content suppression
Negative content suppression or also known as Reverse SEO is a process where you need to create high-quality content that will rank high and will outrank the negative content and negative search results on the internet.
From this, we can understand that pushing down the negative content (articles, search results, or video edits) off of the first Google search page is the main goal of suppressing the negative content method.
Because only 5% of people who are using the internet searches are checking the second search page this method of suppressing and pushing negative content off of the first search page is considered successful.
Suppress the Negative Content using Reverse SEO
No person can remain indifferent when they discover unwanted content on the internet about them personally or about their business. Recently, we can see a lot of negative articles floating on the internet about different brands.
Because of this reason people are interested to learn the reverse SEO method so they can successfully fight against online defamation and remove negative content from Google search results.
When they see negative content about their business online, many people are getting upset because they believe that is not a real reflection of their brand and the services they offer.
If you are trying to earn legally and you are not a scammer that means negative content about your business online is fake and probably goes against Google Privacy Policy rules. In this situation, negative content on the internet can be reported to Google and they will be able to de-index and remove it from internet searches in the future.
For all other negative results that cannot be totally removed from the internet, there are other options that you can use. You can bury negative search results that cannot be deleted from the internet with the method of reverse SEO. If you are not familiar with this method or you don’t have enough experience you should look for professionals that will be able to sort this for you.
Which steps to use when trying to suppress negative content?
First of all, you will need to build a professional website for your business and the products that you are selling. Once you make a website with high-quality content that is looking great and professional you will need to start promoting your new website together with the quality content that is already created. You will need to know that promoting and advertising your brand online can make some additional costs for you!
Before or after you are done with the promotion and advertisement process you will need to make internal linking to all of your new sites and additionally don’t forget to link your social media accounts with it.
Reverse SEO process and steps
For everyone that wants to try the suppression (Reverse SEO) process on their own, we have some steps that you need to follow in order to do this correctly.
Phrases that trigger negative content
Whenever you make a search about your brand online you would probably want to see the positive content that appears on the first page of Google search results. With this reverse SEO method and approach, you will need to look for negative results that will appear and make a plan on how to suppress them.
Once you complete your search you will need to make a plan and strategy on how to fix this problem in the shortest period possible.
How to boost positive results
After you are finished with the previous process of identifying the negative content that appears on search pages, you should start optimizing your content so it can become better and suppress the negative content that is already ranked.
In this process, you will need to use keyword targeting, link building, and other SEO tactics in order to outrank the bad results that are dominant on the first search page.
Creating new, optimized, and high-quality content
Optimizing and ranking your old content from the website is not going to bring you a lot of benefits, at least not enough to push negative search results on the internet related to your brand.
Because of this, you will need to create new, fresh, and optimized content with high-quality material that will be able to rank high and suppress all the negative content off of the first Google search engine results page.
In this process, it is highly recommended to create new blogs, social media accounts, and websites in order for this method to be successful.
Following your progress closely
Once you are done with everything mentioned in the previous steps you will need to spend some time and follow closely the progress of your work. You will need to keep an eye on your keywords and search terms and see how they act and if they are progressing by the plan.
At the same time, you should keep eye on unwanted search results and check if they start to drop and move down the ladder. The best outcome will be if your new content rank on the first page and all negative content get pushed to the next pages.
This negative search results suppression via Search Engine Optimization (SEO) will not only remove the negative results from the first result pages but will also bring a lot of other benefits. Whenever you create high-quality content with SEO in mind you will also strengthen your online branding and online presence, and you will promote your business in a positive light on search engines.
Last Words
In case you are seeing a lot of negative content on the internet related to your brand, that is the sign for you to look at how to improve your online appearance.
One method is to request the removal of the negative search results related to your brand and another more efficient method is to take control into your hands and produce high-quality content that will be able to suppress all the negative content off of the first Google search page.
If you closely follow our steps you will improve your chances of hiding and neutralizing negative results on the internet and you will regain control over your brand appearance online.
Looking for professional help to remove negative search results? Click here now to contact us!