A bad reputation is easy to earn on the Internet, as many people know. It can be earned for legitimate reasons–bad service or fault products. But it can also be earned for ridiculous reasons to–an angry former employee wants to express his frustration, an unreasonable customer wants to vent, etc. Google, the leading search engine by far, is changing the formula by which it collects reviews.

“Google Maps is now using the new capability of sentiment analysis to better understand content and add ‘reviews’ from non traditional sources like newspaper articles and single blog entries that appear across the internet,” he says. “This new capability will dramatically increase the reach of hyperlocal blogs, change how businesses manage the review process and could, over the long haul, change how and where reviews are generated and aggregated.”

More on the newest developments below. These changes could have serious repercussions for the reputations of companies who depend upon the Internet for new customers (like–all of them). There may be a rising need for corporate reputation management.

http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2010/01/18/google-makes-it-harder-to-hide-from-a-bad-reputation