In its early days the Internet was often referred to as “the wild West” due to the lack of standards governing it. Though the Internet is somewhat more settled these days, one thing that still harkens back to the days of cattle ranchers and train robbers is reputation. In the age of Google, reputations can be ruined by those with genuine grievances and those with grudges alike. Would you know how to defend your reputation or that of your institution should it come under fire? Join Kimberley Barker for a closer look at the good, the bad, and the ugly of life in the reputation economy, and learn about practical steps that you can take to safeguard your good name.

1. The Reputation Economy
Managing your online identity
in the age of Google
Kimberley R. Barker, MLIS
Emerging Technologies & Systems Manager
Claude Moore Health Sciences Library
University of Virginia

2. In this presentation:
• Defining the “reputation economy”
• What is “Google Truth”?
• How does Google work?
• Defining online reputation management services
– Individual
– Corporate
• Establishing a reputation management plan
• Understanding the real-life ramifications of reputation
damage
• Reputation restoration
• Further resources

3. What is the “reputation economy”?
• Refers to the way in which the standing of
a product/person/institution/business is
shaped by the contributions of end users.
• “wisdom of crowds”/crowdsourcing
– Nothing new
– Changes in technology mean that we use
computers instead of the telephone or writing
letters

4. Your own habits
• How many of you Google the following?
– Job candidates
– Dates
– Children’s friends/counselors/teachers
– Doctors
– Products
– Hotels
– Restaurants
• How much are you influenced by what you find?

5. How would you react to an attack
on your reputation?
Toni & Candace respond to
a bad review on Yelp

6. Incidentally…
• 2011 report on Yelp ratings by Harvard
Business School assistant professor Michael
Luca:
– a one-star increase in the rating of an
independent restaurant leads to a 5 to 9
percent increase in revenue.
• http://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Publication%2
0Files/12-016.pdf

7. Google is King
Data from Hitwise, 1/21/2012

8. “Google Truth”
• Defined as the automatic acceptance of
Google results as an accurate
representation of reality
“Don’t believe everything
you read on the Internet”
- Abraham Lincoln

9. How Google works (1 of 7)
• Google is comprised of three distinct parts
– Googlebot
– Indexer
– Query processor
• Each part has its own specific and unique
function.

10. How Google works (2 of 7)
• Googlebot
– Composed of 1000’s of computers engaged in
parallel processing:
• Requests & retrieves 1000’s of different pages
simultaneously; does this two ways
– “Add URL” forms
– Find links via web crawling
» Fresh crawls
» Deep crawls

11. How Google works (3 of 7)
• Indexer
– Receives full texts of pages from Googlebot;
stores them in databases
– Index sorts search terms alphabetically
• Ignores “stop words”
• Converts all text to lower-case
– Each entry in index stores list of documents with
that search term and also the location within the
text of that search term

12. How Google works (4 of 7)
• Query processor
Multiple parts
•Search box
•“engine” that evaluates
searches & matches to
relevant documents
•Results formatter

13. How Google works (5 of 7)

14. How Google works (6 of 7)
(It’s a popularity contest… sort of)
• PageRank
– Link analysis algorithm
– Page with higher rank displays higher in results list
– Google uses over 100 factors to determine rank
– How is PR calculated?
• Basically, the more times that a page is linked to
determines its PR
– Built from this algorithm, which is used iteratively:
» PR(A) = (1-d) + d (PR(T1)/C(T1) + … + PR(Tn)/C(Tn))

15. How Google works (7 of 7)

16. Hummingbird
• Google replaced its algorithm in August,
2013
• The preceding seven slides are still valid
• Hummingbird is semantic; i.e., based on
natural language queries
– Conversational search technology
– Uses Google’s Knowledge Graph
• Google is looking towards future
– 60% of Americans access Internet on mobile
device
– Spoken searches

17. Why did I just spend 8 slides on
Google?
• If you understand how Google works, you
will understand how to:
– Positively increase your online presence
– Monitor your reputation
– Formulate a basic reputation restoration plan
– Understand when you need to seek
professional help

18. What is ORM (online reputation
management)?
• Basically, “…the practice of making people and
businesses look their best on the Internet.”
www.reputation.com
• For whom is this service?
– Individuals
– Professionals
– Institutions
•Who can perform this service?
•Reputation management professionals
•People just like you

19. ORM is big business
• “American companies will spend $2.2
billion in 2012 for "reputation and presence
management," according to Jed Williams,
senior analyst for BIA / Kelsey, a media-consulting
firm based in Chantilly, Va.By
2015, that sum will grow to $5 billion, says
Williams.”
– “Can you erase your online blunders? With
effort, and luck, it's possible”; Lacitis, Erik;
Seattle Times; July 29, 2012

20. Should individuals/institutions bother
with ORM?
• In my opinion, if you aren’t monitoring
your reputation in the same way that you
monitor your credit, you’re crazy.

21. Pew Internet & American Life’s
Internet & Health Report 2013
http://www.pewinternet.org/Infographics/2013
/Health-and-Internet-2012.aspx

22. Some online
healthcare ranking sites
• HealthGrades

23. Some online
healthcare ranking sites
Rate MDs

24. Yelp again
• Study shows high Yelp rating correlates
with better Hospital outcomes
– Bardach NS, Asteria-peñaloza R, Boscardin WJ, Adams
dudley R. The relationship between commercial
website ratings and traditional hospital performance
measures in the USA. BMJ Qual Saf. 2012.
• http://www.imedicalapps.com/2013/02/yelp-hospital-outcomes/

25. Establishing a
reputation management plan
• Begin monitoring your online presence
– Good
• Search for your name at least once per month
– Best
• Create a search alert for your name
•Check your privacy settings on all social media
•Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc
•Feed your online presence with positive content
•Blogging, Tweeting, profile sites, YouTube, professional
directories, newsletters, etc.

26. Search results for me

27. Establishing a
reputation management plan
• Be aware of who might be looking for information
about you
•Think about to what sites Google will direct searchers
•E.g., those searching for information on professors will
be directed to sites such as RateMyProfessor, etc
•Accept the fact that no information does NOT equal a
positive image and, in fact, can be viewed with suspicion

28. Reputation Restoration
• First steps
– You will be hurt, scared, and angry.
Take some time to process your
emotions.
– Tell your family and trusted friends.
You will need their support to get
through this.
– Realize that you are not the first person
whose reputation has been damaged-you
are not alone.

29. Reputation Restoration
– Realize that there exist tools to restore your
good name.
– Assess the damage; if severe, consult a
professional reputation management
consultant immediately. Accept that you
cannot repair the damage on your own and
that the issue won’t just go away.
– DO NOT respond with posts of your own.

30. Reputation Restoration
(information drawn from
Chapter 12 of Wild West 2.0)
• Understand the problem
• Make a plan
• Implement the plan

31. Understand the problem I
(WW 2.0, Chapter 12)
• What is the extent of the problem?
•Perform an online reputation
audit (see Chapter 10 of WW 2.0)
•Comb carefully through first three
pages of Google results, and then
skim the next seven.

32. Understand the Problem II
• Find the source of negative content
• Use an Internet archive provider to check the
URL’s of negative content. Try to determine
where it began.
• Determine whether it is accidental or deliberate
• accidental- “name collision”- reinforcing cycle
• Deliberate- a lie about you; legitimate
complaint

33. Make a plan
(WW 2.0)
• Create a recovery road map
– As in Chapter 10: create list of people who might
search for you
– Create list of sites to which they are directed
– Prioritize which sites to repair first- some smears
easier to repair than others
• Create recovery goals
– Be realistic: it may be impossible to completely
expunge false information- News sites and some blogs
will may always show up in top 10 results and only
feeding positive content (and time) can remedy that.
– Pushing negative content to bottom of search results
may be just as effective

34. Make a Plan
• Create recovery goals
– Be realistic: it may be impossible to
completely expunge false information-
News sites and some blogs will may
always show up in top 10 results and
only feeding positive content (and time)
can remedy that.
– Pushing negative content to bottom of
search results may be just as effective

35. Implement your plan
(WW 2.0)
• Try to find a human
– Contact page administrator via form or email
– CALMLY explain the problem- you need his/her
help!
– If a human will not help you, figure out
from where that website is drawing its false
information. Try to correct the information
at the source (claim your online identity,
etc)

36. Claim as many corners of the web as you can!
about.me

37. Also…
• Sites like Yelp, Facebook, HealthGrades,
etc, are protected from liability for content
on their sites by section 230 of the
Communication Decency Act (CDA 230),
part of the 1996 Telecommunications Act:
– “no provider or user of an interactive
computer service shall be treated as the
publisher or speaker of any information
provided by another information content
provider.”

38. Implement your plan
(WW 2.0 Chapter 12)
• Malicious attacks
– Determine seriousness of threat & frequency
• If a one-off, let it fade away
• If dedicated, persistent attacker, understand that
no matter what you do, this person may continue
to spread lies.
• Try to identify attacker
– Sometimes use info known only to a few
– Sometimes pseudonym is a clue
– Try through legal means- understand expensive and
lengthy

39. Implement your plan
(WW 2.0, Chapter 12)
• Choose your strategy
– Fight back directly
– Try to resolve offline (but proceed carefully)
– Try to isolate negative content indirectly; i.e.,
“Google walls”
• Create more positive & neutral content than
attacker creates negative. Play the Google
algorithm.

40. How does reputation restoration work?
• Remember all of those slides about Google?
• ORM professionals will always be more effective than an
individual simply because they can devote more
resources to it.

41. The future of ORM
• Just as institutions have attorneys, they will
have contracts with reputation
management companies which cover:
– Institution itself
– Individuals who have support of the institution
After all, the reputations of its individuals
affects the reputation of the institution.

42. Don’t be an ostrich!
• Not only SHOULD you not ignore your
online identity, but you soon WILL NOT be
able to
• The way in which you respond to legitimate
criticism can in fact bolster your reputation
(individual or institution)
– Yelp example from Atlanta

43. Further Resources
• Wild West 2.0: How to protect and restore your
online reputation on the untamed social frontier;
Fertik & Thompson (available digitally in Virgo)
• The Reputation Society: How online opinions are
reshaping the offline world; Masum & Tovey
• How Google Works:
http://www.googleguide.com/google_works.htm
l
• Rate My Expectations: How online evaluations of
professors impact students’ perceived control
– http://osil.psy.ua.edu/pubs/RMP1.pdf

44. Further Resources
• http://infolab.stanford.edu/~backrub/goog
le.html
• http://www.sirgroane.net/google-page-rank/
• http://www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2013
/Health-online/Part-Two/Section-2.aspx
• http://pewinternet.org/Commentary/2012
/February/Pew-Internet-Mobile.aspx