How to Deal With Negative Articles on Google

Building a strong brand means recognizing potential reputation crises and knowing how to handle online articles that misrepresent you or your business. Negative press on Google can erode customer trustand disrupt your operations.

Burying negative search results can be complex, time-consuming and cost a fortune that in the long run will negatively affect the financials of your company or your career. Fortunately, there are branding experts who specialize in removing or burying unfavorable articles from the Google search engine. Whether you’re an individual or a business, it’s important to have a good reputation by removing any negative content as soon as possible.

Related: 5 Tactics to Bury Bad Press and Reclaim Your Brand Reputation

Benefits of deleting negative online articles

The public perception of your brand greatly depends on your ability to know how to remove bad search results. False reviews and misleading articles damage your credibility in many ways. Harmful content can even lower your search rankings when it increases your bounce rates and decreases click-through rates.

This means you’ll have fewer people visiting your site, which can significantly affect purchases and revenue. A lot of customers who may have wanted to do business with you may no longer want to after they read a bad article about your company. And the longer the bad information stays up on the internet, the worse the reputation damage will be.

Reach out to the website to report a breach of its content policies

Many websites enforce strict rules for the content they publish. If you discover an article about your brand that contains false or incorrect information, first review the site’s content policy. If the article appears to violate its rules, you may request its removal by providing proof that the article breaches a specific policy that they have.

Contact the site by providing clear facts why this article breaches the policy, and ask that they update it or remove it completely from the site.

Related: How to Remove Negative Reviews Online and Protect Your Online Reputation

Ask Google to take down the content from the search results

If you reach out to the website administrator and have no luck getting the content taken down, you can always ask Google to remove it for you. Google does a great job of helping users delete negative links that contain false information, fake content, or serious defamation, if the content qualifies for removal. You’ll have to explain your case and provide proof to support it.

Get in touch with the writer directly to discuss the issue

In many cases, contacting the author who wrote a specific piece directly is the most effective approach. Look up the email on the website, craft a nice email and explain what part of the article you believe is unfair or untrue. Make sure to include lots of facts and screenshots to back up your request. The writer might agree to edit or remove the article to maintain accuracy and credibility.

Related: The 5 ‘Cs’ Approach to Conflict Resolution in the Workplace

What does it mean to remove negative online articles?

Suppressing negative online content is much different than having it deleted, but it can still help your brand’s credibility in lots of ways. The search engine suppression process involves a mixture of unique approaches, like adding more positive content to the internet about your company, publishing press releases and optimizing SEO across multiple platforms.

When done strategically, the good content about your brand will take the place of the bad articles in search results.

Search engines often display social media profiles on Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram and Twitter on the first page of results. You should definitely sign up for these services now if you haven’t already. Be sure to utilize your company name consistently across all of your profiles and to fill them out to the fullest.

Related: How to Better Manage Your Brand’s Reputation in the Digital Age

Build new websites focused on branded search terms

Building a new website is another way to suppress negative articles about your brand. The new site should be full of information that praises your company and all of its offerings. Highlighting the strengths in the webpages you publish will boost your credibility and search visibility.

It’s also a good idea to include a page that clearly outlines positive reviews provided by current and former customers. Over time, these pages will rise in their search rankings, suppressing the harmful articles that damage your brand image.

Publish articles on trusted external platforms

Next, you’ll want to create high-quality material on popular websites that have high search rankings. You can do this through contributions, insightful analyses and thought leadership articles. Pick subjects that are relevant to your field, and be sure to mention your company name subtly throughout. Upon publication, these pieces will bolster your brand’s credibility and redirect focus from previous negative mentions.

Build a presence with links

Having a strong brand presence on authoritative websites that have relevant articles to your industry is essential for suppressing negative information about your individual brand or your company. We live in a world where people use Google on a daily basis, and they always research the company before they want to work with it. That’s why links not only help build trust with potential customers but also push down unwanted or harmful search results on Google.

Research keywords that trigger a negative result

Find out what keywords bring up the bad article by Googling your name or company. Once you know which terms lead to the bad content, you can make new pages that employ the same keywords positively. Doing this will result in the new, positive content coming up first in search results by causing the unfavorable information to fall in the rankings.