Many businesses experiencing negative search engine results want those results to disappear or become less visible. In this article, I will explain what SEO work entails to counteract negative search engine results.
Negative Search Engine Results
Negative search results typically result from an online reputation crisis. These results can affect various aspects of a business, including not only the brand name or a specific product/service, but also relevant search terms and even the names of the company’s directors or founders. To address this issue, “reverse SEO” aims to counteract negative results that cause them to lose ranking or become less visible in search results.
Website and Social Media Channels
It’s important to note that when working on SEO to counteract negative results, this work isn’t limited to just the company’s website or online store. It also encompasses multiple digital platforms, such as the company’s social media channels. This is because search results can display both websites and social media channels. Therefore, if a company (with negative results) only focuses on website SEO, it might achieve a good ranking, but that ranking (1 out of 10) won’t be enough to displace the other negative results.
For this reason, it’s also recommended to work on social media SEO to reach as many positions as possible and push negative results down to the second page of results (so they’re not visible in the top 10).
Previous SEO or Initial Situation
One factor to consider in these types of cases is the level of SEO the business or company had at the time the online reputation crisis began. If a business’s website or online store has good SEO, the negative impact will be less severe, and it will be easier to counteract negative search engine results. On the other hand, if the company has no SEO, the negative impact will be greater, and it will be more difficult to counteract negative search engine results.
When an online reputation crisis occurs and SEO efforts begin, it doesn’t mean that negative comments will disappear immediately. Since SEO is a medium- to long-term strategy, these negative results are likely to take between 6 months and 1 year to disappear (depending on the company’s initial SEO level). Therefore, it’s crucial to have a preliminary SEO strategy in place to shorten the time to results.
Platforms we control
When a company experiences negative search engine results, it’s important to focus on the channels or platforms it controls, such as its website, online store, and social media channels. Many people make the mistake of focusing on the channels where the negative post appears, when the best approach is to use our time and resources to optimize the channels we control or own.
While many people might consider complaining to be a negative outcome, we can ask ourselves: What is more likely? Will an external website remove a negative article about us, or will our website rank higher in search results and outrank that negative post?
Future SEO Strategy
After the company manages to counteract the negative results (moving them to the second page of search results), it’s important for the company to start working on the website’s SEO with a long-term perspective. If we consider that a company experiences a reputation crisis every 5 to 10 years, it’s perfectly normal for it to happen again. Therefore, in addition to having an online reputation crisis management plan, we must also have a solid SEO strategy for the future, as this will help protect us from future attacks or negative search results.
Personal Experience on the Topic
In my personal experience, I can say that the best way to counteract negative search engine results is to optimize your website’s SEO (and social media channels) to counteract those negative results. Any “lawsuits,” “complaints,” or “threats” aimed at removing these negative search results generally have the opposite effect, as they tend to increase the number of negative posts.
I recall the case of someone who sent a cease and desist letter (from a law firm) to a client for mentioning their name in an article about a company they founded. We decided to remove the content from the website to avoid problems, but other websites reacted negatively to the “threat” and published more negative content about the person. They also used their personal social media accounts to express their discontent. As we can see, this legal action only increased the number of negative search results.
Another situation I’ve encountered is that some clients come to me wanting negative search results to disappear immediately, but I then have to explain that SEO doesn’t work that way and that results can take 6 to 12 months (depending on their current or initial SEO level).
What are your thoughts on this? Has your company or business experienced an online reputation crisis or negative search engine results?
If you’d like help counteracting negative search results, you can contact me by visiting the following link.