Over at Google’s official blog, there is a very helpful post about how to manage your online reputation using search results. That is, of course, what the search engine reputation management business is all about–so Google giving out some tips and guidelines is incredibly helpful. Too often in the industry, people focus on reactionary solutions, rather than pre-emptive solutions.

Remember that although something might be appropriate for the context in which you’re publishing it, search engines can make it very easy to find that information later, out of context, including by people who don’t normally visit the site where you originally posted it.

If you don’t want everyone to know what you are posting online, then do not post it online. It’s as simple as that. That is just one of many helpful tips that the Google blog has to offer, and it’s a good one.

Politicians know more than their fair share about online reputation management. They are confronted with its effect on nearly a daily basis. Whether it’s their facebook page, twitter account, or just the blogosphere–politicians are under a sensitive radar watch that catches every single word they say and every single word that is said about them. It is hard to maintain a decent online reputation in the midst of all of that.

Potential candidates are hiring Internet scrubbers these days to clean up their online images before they even declare candidacy.

Online reputation management firms that already do big business in the corporate world are being hired by campaigns to monitor and manage candidates’ online brands. Integrity Defenders President Alan Assante said politicians, including state senators and members of Congress, now make up about 15 percent of the firm’s clients.

Politicians have taken to scrubbing their online histories, which is certainly the right way to go about things–but it is usually not very effective. The truth is, as far as politicians are concerned, that highly interested and qualified journalists are going to find the dirt if they are looking for it. Reputation Management Services, though, can make it so that the first links that people comes across aren’t so negative.

This Time article asks, “when is it time to call the experts?” regarding Internet Reputation Management. The question is one that gets tossed around often, but the answer is much easier than it seems and much easier than this article makes it. The answer, of course, is…don’t wait. Don’t be reactive, be proactive. Fortify your online reputation before something happens to it, rather than waiting until after.

But for a growing number of people, these searches can also drudge up something ugly: blog posts written by an ex about a nasty divorce, an ill-advised YouTube video of a rowdy night out, details of a decade-old bankruptcy. As much as we might be loath to admit it, what the Internet is saying about us matters.

This is why it is important to act before anything is actually wrong. Search engine reputation management works better as a proactive solution than as a reactive one.

Civility is an important asset to possess in almost any circumstance. However, this article does a good job of making the argument that the chaotic atmosphere of the Internet calls for more civility than most other situations. The Internet is a place where malcontents will destroy your reputation just for the fun of it–and you do not even have to do anything to those individuals to attract their malicious attention, so doing something to warrant their attention is pretty much just the opposite of the goal.

Online message boards have proliferated in every city and town, on campuses and even on corporate websites. And they’re typically dominated by unnamed or pseudonym-toting commentators, who often fire verbiage far over the line of civility, not to mention the legally permitted.

Reputation management experts have known about this basic principle for quite awhile, but it is good to see that others are realizing it too. The legal system, hopefully, will someday catch up to the needs of the average Internet user.

This has been a week when children or young teens could use online reputation management, that much is true. Rebecca Black is the newest personality to sweep the social networking and search industries, but it isn’t a positive development for her. Her music video, which can be found on Youtube, has been spread all across the Internet because…well…it’s awful. I won’t pile on, but the general consensus is that it’s a very very bad song. Of course…she shouldn’t be too upset:

Viral web sensation Rebecca Black is the most popular kid on the internet – estimated to have earned $US40,000 in a week from her vanity YouTube music clip – but child psychologists and online reputation experts are sounding the alarm.

Frankly, I get the concern from child psychologists, but $40,000 is a lot of dough for a 13 year old. She can put towards a top notch college education and maybe a car and then every peer who sneers at her, she can respond to them using a Harvard education while driving her new model car. Not much to make fun of there.

People often forget, during their browsing of, and posting on, the Internet–that is a place where anonymity rules. While the Internet is a lawful place, there are certain parts of it which remain lawless. The comparison to early 20th century is America is apt–lawful is most areas, but with lawless frontiers too.

The Internet, as we all know, is a very public place where dirty washing doesn’t just get aired in front of people; it gets inspected, deconstructed, reposted and even spoofed if left unchecked. When the proverbial hits the online fan, the stench can stretch far and wide, and no matter how many windows you open, the smell may never go away.

This is as accurate of a statement about those corners of the Internet as I have seen. Remember, things that are posted on the Internet never truly go away because even if deleted, they get indexed. Search engine reputation management can do a lot to fix problems like this, but the four tips in the above article are well worth reading too.

The dominant question this article by the BBC asks is, could the internet kill your business? The answer is a resounding yes. Offline businesses can be injured, or even shut down, by online comments about those businesses. Business owners are often aghast at what online commenters say about their establishments.

When prospective clients looked her up on Google, she says, details of the case popped up on that all-important first page. “All you saw was this docket, that I’d been sued. But it didn’t tell the whole story, it comes up as a black mark, but it didn’t talk about the settlement.” Ms Posoli-Cilli’s customers are among the wealthiest consumers in the world. They rarely appear on commercially available mailing lists, and they value their security and privacy.

The article linked above cites a number of anecdotes which serve as evidence, but if you think about it–you don’t need a BBC journalist to provide you with evidence of this, you know it’s true. The online world has an importance now that it lacked a decade ago–the search engines alone direct so much traffic that to have a bad reputation on a search engine could be the death knell for your company. This is why reputation management has become as popular as it has–because a need arose for it.

Online reputation management is not a totally new industry, though it is a totally new manifestation of an old industry. Image consulting, PR work–these are the precursors and parallel industries that make online reputation management so important. Managing your reputation online is just a extension of your reputation in general. With that said, people too often neglect the online aspect of their reputations because having to worry about this aspect is a more recent development.

More and more individuals are searching cyberspace and the online reputations of those seeking employment, a romantic interest, or customers for their business. While the Google, Yahoo, Ask, AOL and Bing search engines have become the de facto public record of modern time, reputation management consultants believe you have a right to control how your name is presented online.

Bing, Google, MSN, Dogpile–these are just a couple of the search engines where you can find out information about other people. If you plug your name into these search engines, you’ll likely be greeted by nothing nefarious. However, for a select few of you readers, you’ll be met with something that is negative. For you, online reputation management just became a reality.

It is always good to see informational articles like this popping up concerning the online reputation management services industry. Monitoring what is said about you online, which pictures carry your name, and how people talk about you on social networks is a key part of maintaining an online reputation. If you don’t maintain it, someone else likely will–often with disastrous results.

In fact, over three-quarters of the folk surveyed said they believe it is very important to search out information on a person or business before deciding whether or not to interact with them.

That statistic comes from a survey with Harris Interactive, a well-respected polling firm, so you can take it to the bank. More importantly, it just confirms what we already knew years ago–that people look to the Internet for information, even about other people. So be careful and take control of your online reputation as soon as possible.

This article is a particularly good explanation of how and why people and companies should get out ahead of their reputation management problems. British Petroleum, Tiger Woods, and Sharon Angle all could have benefitted from this knowledge in the past year. People will need this advice in the future too, so I’ll post it here for all the world to see–because as the golden rules teach us, nothing on the Internet ever disappears.

“Ignoring people makes them mad,” Downhill said. “And now they have tools to fight back and make their voices heard.”

PC manufacturer Dell learned this lesson in summer 2005, when blogger Jeff Jarvis began documenting his customer service ordeal with the company. By the time Dell responded and fixed the problem, stock prices had fallen.

Amongst the golden rules of online reputation management listed by Downhill are, “It never goes away”, “the boss knows”, “domains matter”, “be safe”, and others–all of which are good advice for someone who is looking to have an Internet presence.