Well -have you? My guess is that the answer is 'no' (unless you’re a bit of a narcissist!) Joke ….
But seriously Online Reputation Management is an important issue when it comes to not only what is on the internet about you, but also if you are a marketing or brand manager it is vitally important that you keep a check on what is online about your company or brand.
Not wanting to just preach the message I decided to run the experiment on myself and it made for “interesting” (not really) reading. First and second results on Google pulled up my own website and my Blog (shamelessly not updated in a while), then it’s my Vimeo channel (you should check out Vimeo it’s brilliant http://www.vimeo.com/ ), then I get my Linkedin profile – great for anyone who wants to know more about my professional credentials, next some info from my previous job, then oh no! it all go’s wrong….
There’s a very old entry on a Blog that Google has picked up making fun of my name – great I shall have to thank my ‘best friend’ from uni next time 
My name is quite funny when I think about it!
I don’t really have anything to worry about from what’s on Google for me – however I have been careful, I made my profile private on Facebook so Google doesn’t pull this up in the search results. This is less about not wanting everyone in the world to find me and more about internet security. Do I really want a credit card thief finding my date of birth or location – no not really.
For businesses keeping check of your online reputation is even more important. What someone finds when they search for you company or brand on Google (which has over 90% of the search market) can dramatically influence how your companied is perceived. Don’t believe me try Googleing Coke and see what’s there....
So what can you do? – Well we have free speech so unless someone is slandering your brand and you have lots of money to give the lawyers not much. Rather than see this as a negative you should follow what is being written about your brand/company online and engage or reply to any ‘bad press’. One way of doing this is set up a Google Account and subscribe to Goole Alerts (http://www.google.com/alerts ) about your company. You will receive daily updates about what has been put on the internet about your brand/company; (alternatively you can keep a track on your competitors - sneaky). That way you can proactively respond/react to any negative press – and know about it as soon as it happens rather than when someone forwards it around the office!
So the message is: Keep and eye on Google! It can be your friend delivering incredible business value for via Google Adwords and Natural Search results – but without the proper attention your brand could be being slammed without you even realizing it!
