How To Remove Negative Search Results
Eliminate or suppress negative search results and unwanted online content to start showcasing the best version of yourself
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Your Online Reputation Can Make Or Break You...
Discover Content Removal and Suppression Solutions That Help You Look Your Best Online
Reputation Rhino is led by an extraordinary team of experienced legal, marketing, technology, and public relations experts who can customize an affordable and highly effective online reputation management strategy designed to remove damaging news articles, reviews, blog posts, forum comments, and other negative content and promote a positive online image to anyone looking for you or your brand online.
Online reputation management is an essential element of the marketing strategy for businesses and personal brands alike.
MAKE A STELLAR FIRST IMPRESSION
What Do People See When They Google You?
Online reputation management involves a strategic combination of marketing, public relations, legal and search engine optimization (SEO) strategies to promote, protect and defend your online image or business reputation. Our proprietary strategies can help remove the negative content and promote the good.
Establish Trust and Authority
Attract New People To Your Brand
Maintain Customer Loyalty and Increase Lifetime Customer Value
Blow Past Competition and Take Top Rankings On Google
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Google is a billboard for your reputation. Advertise your best features.
A recent Pew Research survey found that 74% of U.S. adults say it is more important to keep things about themselves from being searchable online than it is to discover potentially useful information about others.
85% of U.S. adults say that all Americans should have the right to have potentially embarrassing photos and videos removed from online search results. 56% of U.S. adults say all Americans should have the right to have negative media coverage about themselves removed from public search results.
SoftwareAdvice conducted a survey in 2014 regarding online privacy and the “right to be forgotten” that reached similar conclusions.
Reputation Rhino has a team of experienced public relations, legal, marketing, and technology professionals trained to remove or bury negative online content by creating and optimizing positive Internet content.
This is how customers, employers, clients, and even acquaintances discover, evaluate, and develop trust for you or your brand
85%
of consumers say you should have the right to remove negative content from search
74%
of consumers say that it's important to them to keep things from being "searchable"
61%
of consumers believe everyone should have the right to be forgotten about
50%
of consumers say that irrelevant search results can harm a person or brand's reputation
Look your best Online
How To Remove Google Search Results
If you are looking to remove online search results from Google, we first recommend contacting that website’s owner, content provider, or domain provider. If successful, this will remove the content at the source. You can usually find the contact information for a website on the website itself or you can look up a website’s owner or point of contact through services like WhoIs.net.
If you are the owner of a website or webmaster, it is easy to remove a page or multiple pages from appearing in Google search results. First, verify the property in Google Search Console and you can choose to either temporarily remove the URL (about six months) or clear a cached URL for content that has changed.
If you want to permanently remove Google search results for a website you own and control, you should first remove the content from your site so it returns either a 404 – Not Found or 410 – Gone or you can notify Google that the page should not be indexed using the no index meta tag.
Remove Google Image Search Results
To remove an image from Google, you can use robots.txt to block either the image or the page that hosts it.
If you are not the owner of the website and the content is still live on the page, Google may remove:
When To Get Professional Help
If you are not the owner of the website or webmaster and the content is no longer live on the page, the Google Remove Outdated Content Tool allows a user to notify Google about broken links or outdated cache pages appearing in web results. Pages appearing in Google’s web search results that are broken links returning a 404 – Not Found error or pages that appear in Google’s web search results that contain outdated content in the cached version of the page will be re-crawled and removed usually in 24-48 hours. It is a costly and time-consuming process.
How To Generate More Positive Reviews
It is usually more advantageous to proactively seek positive reviews than wage war against a single negative review, and online reputation management companies like Reputation Rhino are uniquely suited to be able to help reduce the visibility and minimize the impact of a negative review, however, sometimes legal action may be necessary.
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The Complete Solution For A 5-Star Online Reputation
Reputation Rhino offers comprehensive review management services through our 4 pillars of reputation success: Monitor, Response, Outreach, Reporting
Monitor
We Monitor all relevant reviews posted for your business on the most relevant business review and complaint sites every day.
We also track relevant niche-specific sites, so no matter your industry or where you come from, Reputation Rhino has your back.
Response
We also provide a Response to all relevant reviews by our team of experienced online reputation management professionals. This personalized service allows us to act as a representative of your ORM Company to acknowledge and recognize positive reviews and escalate and resolve problems posted online in an effort to convert negative customer reviews to positive reviews.
We can even share positive reviews (e.g., 4* or higher on Facebook and/or Twitter).
Outreach
We provide Review Outreach services to your existing clients and customers. We target those individuals who have had a positive experience with your company and direct these customers to leave reviews on the most visible online review sites so they can have maximum impact.
We use proprietary systems and strategies to contact your best patients of past and present to request more high-rated reviews on your behalf, allowing your business to quickly catapult towards a stellar online review profile.
Reporting
We provide monthly Reporting with detailed metrics so you know who is reviewing your company, when they are reviewing, what they are saying and where they are posting their reviews so you can identify and respond to trends and allocate advertising and marketing resources accordingly.
We can set alerts daily, weekly, or monthly upon request and change these settings easily
Reputation Rhino provides review monitoring, management, and removal solutions for the following popular review and customer complaint sites:
How To Remove Content from Bing Search Results
If you are the owner of a website or webmaster, it is easy to remove a page or multiple pages from appearing in Bing search results. First, verify your site in Webmaster Tools and use the Block URLs tool to remove a URL or cached page from the Bing search results. Another option is to add a no index meta tag to the page which tells Bing not to show this page in search results.
If you are not the owner of a website or webmaster and the content is no longer live on the page, the Bing Content Removal Tool allows a user to notify Bing about broken links or outdated cache pages appearing in web results.
Pages appearing in Bing’s web search results that are broken links returning a 404 – Not Found error or pages that appear in Bing’s web search results that contain outdated content in the cached version of the page will be re-crawled and removed usually in 24-48 hours. You must have a Bing Webmaster Tools account to use the Bing Content Removal tool.
If you are looking to remove online search results from Bing, we first recommend contacting that website’s owner, content provider, or domain provider. If successful, this will remove the content at the source. You can usually find the contact information for a website on the website itself or you can look up a website’s owner or point of contact through services like WhoIs.net.
If you are not the owner of the website and the content is still live on the page, Bing may remove non-consensual pornography (revenge porn) and have even created a special reporting page available here. Bing will also remove copyright infringement pursuant to the Digital Millenium Copyright Act, and we outline the steps below.
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How to Remove Content from Yahoo Search Results
Most search functionality for Yahoo is now actually powered by Bing. Yahoo Search results that display results for a Web page that is no longer live, such as broken links or outdated cache pages, should automatically be removed from Yahoo during the next scheduled refresh of their search results.
According to Yahoo, the refresh occurs regularly and automatically but may take up to 6-8 weeks. If you are looking to remove online search results from Yahoo, we first recommend contacting that website’s owner, content provider, or domain provider. If successful, this will remove the content at the source. You can usually find the contact information for a website on the website itself or you can look up a website’s owner or point of contact through services like WhoIs.net.
Court Ordered Removal
One of the most expensive and time-consuming options for removing negative content online is to pursue a defamation action against the individual(s) who posted negative content and obtain a court order for removal. When you know the identity of the individual who wrote the defamatory article, you can proceed directly to litigation.
When the individual has chosen to remain anonymous, you can sue an unknown “John Doe” defendant then subpoena his or her Internet service provider (“ISP”) to uncover his or her identity (usually full name and legal address). Once you have “unmasked” the identity of this anonymous individual, you can proceed with a legal action against the individual who posted the defamatory content, and if successful, submit the legal decision to the website or search engine with a request for removal.
Google, Bing and Yahoo have policies stating that they will remove a post from search results after being presented with a court order that determines the content to be false and defamatory.
Copyright Removal
The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) was passed by Congress in 1998 to limit the liability of online service providers for user-generated content hosted on their website(s). Service providers seeking protection under the safe harbors of the DMCA must maintain a compliant notice-and-takedown process by responding expeditiously to remove or disable access to material claimed to be infringing upon receipt of proper notice from a copyright owner or the owner’s authorized agent.
If you are a copyright owner, you or your representative (such as an attorney or online reputation management company) must file a notice of copyright infringement
To file a notice of copyright infringement, you must provide a written communication (e-mail is acceptable) that sets forth the items specified below. Please note that you may be liable for damages (including costs and attorneys’ fees) if you materially misrepresent infringement of your copyright(s).Your DMCA notice and takedown request must include substantially all of the following:
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EU Privacy Removal- The Right To be Forgotten
A landmark ruling by the Court of Justice of the European Union allows people to ask for URLs specifically related to their name to be removed. This right to be forgotten went into effect in May 2014 and allows the delisting of online information from search engine results.
Considered to be a right of privacy, any EU resident can request that Google, Bing, Yahoo, and other search engines delist URLs that may contain information that could be considered “inaccurate, inadequate, irrelevant, or excessive.” The most critical piece of this ruling rests on the requirement that search engine companies determine whether or not a person’s right to privacy outweighs access to information by the public.
As of May 27, 2020, Google has received 930,463 requests to delist a total of 3,656,922 URLs since the 2014 EU ruling. Google approved 53.6% of these requests (1,697,686) and denied 46.4% of these requests (1,468,224). Google states that it will consider the following factors in determining whether to delist content “whether the content relates to the requester’s professional life, a past crime, political office, position in public life, or whether the content is self-authored content, consists of government documents, or is journalistic in nature.”
To submit an EU Privacy request to Google, click here.
To submit an EU Privacy request to Bing, click here.
Most search functionality for Yahoo is actually powered by Bing, so follow the step(s) immediately above for EU Privacy removal.
A September 2019 ruling by the Court of Justice of the European Union held that Google does not have to apply the “right to be forgotten” outside Europe.
The United States does not yet have a law or regulatory requirement to require removal of personal information from search results.
Online Reputation Management and Content Removal
You don’t have to search very long or very hard to find online reputation management companies promising “guaranteed” removal. If it sounds “too good to be true” it probably is. However, there are some websites where it is possible to offer a removal guarantee.
The best online reputation management companies creatively use copyright and defamation / cyber libel law, online privacy regulations, the policies and procedures outlined by Google, Bing, and Yahoo, and confidential, direct and indirect negotiations with webmasters and website owners to help many clients remove online search results.
When content removal is not possible, pushing the negative content off Page 1 is the next best option.
Reputation Rhino is led by an extraordinary team of experienced legal, marketing, technology and public relations experts who can customize an affordable and highly effective online reputation management strategy designed to quickly eliminate the impact of damaging news articles, reviews, blog posts, forum comments, and other negative content.
Contact us today to promote a positive online image to anyone looking for you or your company online
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Got questions? We've got answers!
How do I remove negative Google search results?
If you would like to have something removed from Google search results, the best course of action is to contact the owner of the website or domain and request that it be removed. Sometimes, negative content promises to be so detrimental to a reputation that burying it with positive and neutral content just won’t do. Revenge porn, private information, and content published in order to do harm can be brought to the attention of Google for removal. Citizens of EU countries may have additional recourse because of the expansive privacy legislation in Europe. In many cases, you may need to consult with a content removal specialist or online reputation management company in order to protect your online reputation.
How do you remove negative information from the Internet?
No matter the search engine, your first course of action to remove negative information from the internet should be contacting the website’s host or owner. If this is not appropriate, you may contact Google, Bing, or Yahoo. If you know who has published the negative content, and the information is false, you can sue them for defamation and take it to court. There are no guarantees when it comes to the removal of negative information from the internet; however, working with a top reputation management company, skilled in navigating laws, policies, regulations, and procedures related to online search results, will greatly increase your chances of success.
Can bad reviews be removed from Google?
A bad review cannot be removed from Google simply because you disagree with the content of the online review. Opinions, even rude, obnoxious, and hurtful opinions are protected speech. You must be able to prove that a review came from a competitor, or from someone who’s never done business with your company, for instance. If you can prove that the review is fake, you can then flag it and communicate your evidence to Google. If it is a real review from an actual client or customer, then it’s best to respond to the review by thanking the person for their opinion and working to solve the problem.
How do I delete an online review?
Every platform has a different procedure to delete an online review. The very first course of action should be to either contact the reviewer directly and ask them to remove it (unless they are using profanity or show signs of mental instability) or respond to the negative review publicly to resolve the situation. Online reputation management companies may also have creative ways to remove a review from popular websites. If you consider the review to be slander or libel, flag and report the review (but be ready to submit evidence as to why the review is false). If the review violates the site’s terms of service, you can also flag it and ask for it to be removed. Unfortunately, websites are not responsible for what users post (Section 230, Communications Decency Act), so sites are not liable.
How do you delete a Google review?
According to BrightLocal, 74% of businesses have at least one Google review. When you consider that Google reviews are the most visible in searches, it becomes imperative that your Google reviews be positive. You cannot delete a Google review of you or your business unless you can prove it’s libel or slander. If it is a fake review (and you can prove that it was posted by someone other than an actual customer), you can flag it and present your case to Google for removal.