When I had an offensive blog post appear suddenly in the search engines for queries on my name, I needed to react quickly. The reason is that my name is part of my brand and reputation is everything in this business of search. The AirDisa site is not wholly for SEO, much like Danny's Daggle is more for personal observations than search. My name in search is really not typically that important, and queries are far and few in between - but they count.
People often query names looking for reasons why they can or can't trust you with their business. I've never had an offensive posting appear in my search results. Danny's Daggle appears there because he wrote about me. My bio from SMX West appears there. These are fine, and the sites have good ranking potential on whatever they publish. The information is accurate, and a positive thing for potential clients to see.
Now there's an inaccurate post from a well-known gossiper. His post makes me seem flippant, weird and generally a freak. Now I have a problem, and it'll take a long while to undo. Maybe my rankings never will be unpolluted again. His post was from a blog, and with its built-in syndication, a Business Week Online distribution of it is number 10 and climbing. I hate this!
His post has sometimes out performed Danny's Daggle, and the two posts were vying to be number two. The number one belongs to a television station article on a volleyball player that carries my name. I doubt I would be confused with her, so I'm fine with that, but I would like to be number one of course. It's probably only a matter of time and some work.
You know? It's a funny thing. Perhaps this whole misadventure has a happy ending for me in the long run. Can you tell that I'm upset? People have wanted me to do more writing for years, and I think they gave up on me. Well, getting a Shoe$ thrown at me has me back in a big way. I have to be. So, I should be thankful to him. It really could only cost *his* brand in the long run, especially since the original use of images without my permission for his post was the trouble in the first place. That, and getting practically everything wrong about me.
The way to treat these issues is, of course, get your own sites up there. I took a look at the sites that were top 10, including those I have control of (my own plus Social Media sites). The one site I knew I could act the quickest with is Twitter. That's because the nature of what I tweet is what gets indexed, not profile info that rarely changes, and profile info I don't want to spoof with keywords.
My problem with Google, is that they censor on behalf of the Chinese government things like Tiananmen Square. Yet, when it comes to inaccurate and disparaging information in the American index, they won't lift a finger. I know that already, and I get that. I don't have as much pull with Google as the oppressive Chinese government. It's not the same scale embarrassment as Tiananmen Square. No big deal.
The other engines are generally doing me well by not ranking the offensive listing. Yahoo! has it down at number 8, Live doesn't have it page one. Google, on the other hand, had it number two until now. I had used Twitter for handling direct messages with people while the foible was happening last week, and since I saw that Twitter listing, I was determined to drive its ranking up to displace the blog post.
All I did at first was tweet like crazy. Within two days, I got a folded result in Google at number two! That drove the post down two places. Then after celebrating with a lot of wine that weekend, I woke up the following Monday feeling generally great. I saw the positions were reversed again. So I set about tweeting some more, and I made plans to start a blog. This one in fact.
Sidebar: I normally wouldn't advise a client to operate a blog on a different domain. On a query for my name? I don't actually care if I flood the results. It won't be the same content as Search Return, and it won't be Twitter, and it won't be Facebook, NetVibes, MySpace, LinkedIn, Yelp or some of the other sites where profiles rank like Google's personal brothel for results on names. Hey, they bust in the doors and index these sites just like a... cowboy heads to Nevada.
Twitter was a beautiful thing. By this morning, Twitter was number two again, and I think this time it'll be pegged. All I have to do is keep it fresh. I might even get it to overcome the basketball player, whose listing is stale anyway. I can wait for freshness to help that result out. Now I can set about writing a whole lot more in other places and eventually, I'll own my space again.
The thing I did to get Twitter solidly above his ranking on my name, was pretend I'm using an app or plugin or something I wrote, and start all my tweets with: Disa Johnson. If I reply, I use Disa Johnson: @oilman hello world! That always has my name in front, and populates my Twitter profile page with the keyword I need. If you ever need to, use this to defend your brand in search.
Stay tuned.
People often query names looking for reasons why they can or can't trust you with their business. I've never had an offensive posting appear in my search results. Danny's Daggle appears there because he wrote about me. My bio from SMX West appears there. These are fine, and the sites have good ranking potential on whatever they publish. The information is accurate, and a positive thing for potential clients to see.
Now there's an inaccurate post from a well-known gossiper. His post makes me seem flippant, weird and generally a freak. Now I have a problem, and it'll take a long while to undo. Maybe my rankings never will be unpolluted again. His post was from a blog, and with its built-in syndication, a Business Week Online distribution of it is number 10 and climbing. I hate this!
His post has sometimes out performed Danny's Daggle, and the two posts were vying to be number two. The number one belongs to a television station article on a volleyball player that carries my name. I doubt I would be confused with her, so I'm fine with that, but I would like to be number one of course. It's probably only a matter of time and some work.
You know? It's a funny thing. Perhaps this whole misadventure has a happy ending for me in the long run. Can you tell that I'm upset? People have wanted me to do more writing for years, and I think they gave up on me. Well, getting a Shoe$ thrown at me has me back in a big way. I have to be. So, I should be thankful to him. It really could only cost *his* brand in the long run, especially since the original use of images without my permission for his post was the trouble in the first place. That, and getting practically everything wrong about me.
The way to treat these issues is, of course, get your own sites up there. I took a look at the sites that were top 10, including those I have control of (my own plus Social Media sites). The one site I knew I could act the quickest with is Twitter. That's because the nature of what I tweet is what gets indexed, not profile info that rarely changes, and profile info I don't want to spoof with keywords.
My problem with Google, is that they censor on behalf of the Chinese government things like Tiananmen Square. Yet, when it comes to inaccurate and disparaging information in the American index, they won't lift a finger. I know that already, and I get that. I don't have as much pull with Google as the oppressive Chinese government. It's not the same scale embarrassment as Tiananmen Square. No big deal.
The other engines are generally doing me well by not ranking the offensive listing. Yahoo! has it down at number 8, Live doesn't have it page one. Google, on the other hand, had it number two until now. I had used Twitter for handling direct messages with people while the foible was happening last week, and since I saw that Twitter listing, I was determined to drive its ranking up to displace the blog post.
All I did at first was tweet like crazy. Within two days, I got a folded result in Google at number two! That drove the post down two places. Then after celebrating with a lot of wine that weekend, I woke up the following Monday feeling generally great. I saw the positions were reversed again. So I set about tweeting some more, and I made plans to start a blog. This one in fact.
Sidebar: I normally wouldn't advise a client to operate a blog on a different domain. On a query for my name? I don't actually care if I flood the results. It won't be the same content as Search Return, and it won't be Twitter, and it won't be Facebook, NetVibes, MySpace, LinkedIn, Yelp or some of the other sites where profiles rank like Google's personal brothel for results on names. Hey, they bust in the doors and index these sites just like a... cowboy heads to Nevada.
Twitter was a beautiful thing. By this morning, Twitter was number two again, and I think this time it'll be pegged. All I have to do is keep it fresh. I might even get it to overcome the basketball player, whose listing is stale anyway. I can wait for freshness to help that result out. Now I can set about writing a whole lot more in other places and eventually, I'll own my space again.
The thing I did to get Twitter solidly above his ranking on my name, was pretend I'm using an app or plugin or something I wrote, and start all my tweets with: Disa Johnson. If I reply, I use Disa Johnson: @oilman hello world! That always has my name in front, and populates my Twitter profile page with the keyword I need. If you ever need to, use this to defend your brand in search.
Stay tuned.
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