As a professional or business owner, or anybody for that matter, making a Google search of their name, product or company seems like a normal thing to do in this highly-interconnected modern world that we live in right now. The search results would most likely put your Facebook or LinkedIn profile at the top of the listings and maybe some entries or two from your blog or website. But aside from the “good and positive” stuff that you would like people to know about you or your business, there may be instances where “unwanted” stuff springs out right from these pages – bad enough to damage your online reputation.

These “bad” entries might be something a former employee or an unsatisfied customer remarked about you in their social network page, a blog or a community forum. One of the worst things that you can do should you find yourself in such situations is to react violently and try to prove them wrong by replying in that same page, blog or forum. Why? You’re just adding fuel to the fire and in no time at all the whole blogosphere would know about this brouhaha – pushing your online reputation deeper and deeper into the quagmire.

What should you do? Although going through the legal route would be the last option to take should you find these libelous charges serious enough, practical internet reputation management would involve a more subtle but effective approach. You can do it on your own although it would take some time to even move an inch in the positive direction. Your best chances would be to seek the help of good internet reputation professionals that can help you utilize a wide variety of methods – all ethical of course – to push all these unwanted content down, down, down the search engine results.

So, have you Googled yourself lately? Do it now and be prepared at what you might find out.