Latest / Online Reputation Management Podcast / The Worst ORM Horror Stories We've Seen: James Dooley and Craig Campbell on Online Reputation Management
Transcript
- James Dooley: Online reputation management horror stories. Obviously, if someone's looking to have some ORM services, they're probably looking to try and clean up something that they don't like that's online. So, let's jump straight in, Craig. Come on. You must have some stories, some horror stories that some people have done and they're trying now to hide the online reputation management. Craig Campbell: Yeah, I'm just trying to think how I can work that um how I can work that without throwing anyone under the bus or getting anyone into trouble. But, you're right, anytime I've ever had someone come to me going, "Can you clean this up?" Someone's either done something they shouldn't have or whatever. Uh and and obviously, there's a line that needs to be drawn in terms of what you're prepared to to do or clean up. Um I have had people come to me uh you know, and they've done kind of sexual things to to people. I'm not talking about rape or or you know, kiddie porn or anything like that, but they've you know, committed a sexual crime. And they came to me and they're like, "Can you do an online reputation management?" And you're like, "Okay, what what what what have you done?" And then they tell you that and you're like, "Nah, I I can't I can't defend you, mate." And I told you this story earlier on about the uh uh I know you're going to see it cuz it will it will obviously tie back that person, but you know, he'd done that and I'm like, "Man, I can't really follow through with this, mate. Like, I'm sorry." So, I've had a lot of horror stories where people have done really bad and weird creepy things. Um but, I've also had some situations where people have been accused of stuff and not actually done it. And in the UK in particular you're guilty till proven innocent and that's a problem because again depending on what the nature of that thing is or whether you get accused of killing someone or shooting someone or fighting with someone and maybe punch them and they fell and banged their head and you know end up with brain damage or whatever. These things happen in life and obviously people have the right to move on in life and you know do their time or whatever they've had and then come out and change. You know reinvent themselves and whatever and I think there's there's certain things like that where I've I've done stuff as well but some of the horror stories I don't want to talk too much about. One horror story I can publicly talk about cuz it's not my story to tell is obviously your mate um Epstein you know it's a and you know came out and uh and the Epstein files or whatever that you know he was paying whatever figure it was James Dooley: I think it's 50 was it 50 or 25,000 dollars? Let's go with 25 just for talking sake. 25,000 dollars to to obviously protect everything he's now Craig Campbell: Yeah I mean proven guilty proven guilty for whatever's going on with that and obviously he was covering up a lot of stuff and I think reputation management goes on in the world and some people have done some really really bad stuff and they're covering it up in form of PR policy and everything else that we've spoken about through throughout the podcast you know you can leverage all of these kind of things to push the negative down. James Dooley: Yeah I think I think on that I think anyone that's watching this and they wanted to see the Jeff Jeffrey Epstein files um there's like a place online if you type in J Mail and you type in SEO reputation management, you literally get it's all public open source. You can see all the emails of what he was doing with SEO agencies to pay them to cover the things up. And with regards to online reputation management, you can try and suppress bad things that have been said online with positive kind of sentiment. I think for me, with regards to horror story moment, the biggest one that I've come across is where someone had They were in Florida. They get arrested. Uh drunk and disorderly. Not really done much wrong. Just drunk and disorderly in street. And they get a mugshot taken. And this mugshot's on a government website, and it ranks really well cuz it's a powerful site. And then, what ended up happening was the agency that they tried to then go with the online reputation management agency to try to get rid of it. Started to try to negatively impact the image ranking. So, instead of trying to sink it and suppress it, they started to do what they thought was bad virality campaigns to the image to try to get rid of it. And they were all, "Well, try to DDoS and stuff like that." And what ended up happening was it became a much bigger problem cuz it was only ranking in like position number six in the Google image tab, which not many people was looking for. Not only did it jump from position number six to position number one in the image rankings, it also then pulled through to the web search with an image carousel, and that being the very first image that came up. So, that's like the biggest horror story I've seen where someone was trying to clean the stuff up, and it's like become way worse kind of now than what it It's a bigger problem now than what it was previously. Um where obviously what they should have tried to do is try to suppress it. Um obviously, I'm quite close to people like Scott Keever, who runs quite a large um online reputation management company. He tells me some horror stories with regards to Some of them it's grim. Give you one that is really bad, right? It might hurt your eyes. Um if you were to Google hottest girl in Manchester and you look at the images you may or may not see Dooly uh with a a Craig Campbell: Yeah, go have a look. Um go have a look. I don't even I don't want to look. James Dooley: Great example, right? So, hottest girl in Manchester, a picture of me shows up in a bikini, right? So, I was on a stag do and stuff like that and then someone's ended up with a bit of fun. It probably was Craig trying to rank the image. But, what it can show you is you can rank images or rank videos or rank web pages for almost any term that you want. So, if that was someone was showing up for ugliest girl in Manchester and you was there positioning one, you don't want to be seen as the ugliest girl, you could rank other images to try to suppress that so you fall down the pecking order to try to get rid of it. So, I mean, that is probably a pretty good example of That's a whole other story. All right. Craig Campbell: Yeah, it's a whole other story. And you can't you can't unsee it. James Dooley: No, you can't unsee it. Um but, I think obviously it proves, you know, if I wanted to um I could probably do damage to you. And that can happen to anyone in any business. You can do it to me and vice versa. Um so, again, you know, we can put positive things up there or jokey things, you know, for telling me hottest girl in Manchester which is a joke. Um but obviously people for the the brand name or the reputation it can Craig Campbell: Yeah, I think I think there's quite a lot of other ones that we can kind of touch on where I'll give you some of the examples and soon as I start telling you you'll remember the stories where people have um fallen out in the SEO community and the SEO's can cause some serious damage and you ended up having it where some people have ended up ranking other people's names for like pedophile and stuff like that and like obviously they're not a pedophile and they've done anything wrong, but they're trying to rank that for this. Um, people are trying to rank like negative stigma articles about that person and just making things up and these turn into horror stories in the fact that it does end up ranking and it can end up affecting one and whether they remain employed if they're an employee, whether they might lose um, business from it. It might affect their multiplier of a sale and stuff like that. So like you've got to be careful with them in the SEO community with who you who you mess with because there is some horror stories where people do go out and I'm like, "Come on, guys. You shouldn't be negative SEOing each other." And it does it does happen. Um, and it's you know, it's not James Dooley: It's not good. I'll tell you a fun story. I don't mind telling it now. It's not something I'm overly proud of, but um, we had this guy um, saying up a lot of lot of hassle by the way this guy. Um, don't want to say his name or anything like that. It's not fair to do that, but this guy had problems with his web developer building the website. We were always involved fighting fighting fighting with the web developers. Our angle was we were going to do the SEO and the paper click for this new project, but it took 6 months to get the website over the line. Guy paid about 50 grand for this website. We were fighting with the developer on his behalf and all that kind of stuff. Anyway, 2 weeks in to the you know, the website going live, we're doing our paper click and and and you know, start the SEO. Guy comes in 2 weeks uh, after commencing and uh, and says something along the lines of I I don't think it's working. I'm like, "You're 2 weeks in. Like, you know, everything's just been through the learning phase and we're trying to create content and all this kind of stuff, you know?" Ah, I don't I don't want to work with these anymore. I'm like, "Fair enough. It's uh, 30-day cooling off period, you know, it's a 30-day notice cuz we're creating this and we're doing that, you know, so you have a final invoice and then we're happy to draw a line under it. So, anyway, the guy left and everyone was happy and we're like, "Yeah, that's fine. We'll just move on. That happens." Uh and the guy phones my business partner at the time and said to him he chased up the invoice. He's like, "What's happening?" Blah, blah, blah, blah. And he gets He says, "See the terms and conditions uh of that 30-day notice period?" He says, "They're not worth the paper people have written on. They go, 'Fuck yourself.'" I've seen red. I phoned the guy. It was like 10 grand or something, you know, this I says to him, "See if that money's not in my bank account by 5:00 tonight, you're going to write for Peter File. Um and the guy went, "You can't do that." I says, "Watch me." Um anyway, got a lawyer involved and all that kind of stuff. You can't defame any me saying this thing saying, "You can't defame me. You can't defame my name, my company, all this stuff." Um anyway, I got my 10 grand. Uh but, I'm just not going to roll over for 10 grand. It's a principle thing rather than anything else. I'm like, "Fuck you. I'm going to use my skills to to fight my corner." Um So, anyway, uh he pays the money and all that kind of stuff. And then I phone him a couple of days later. So, I've obviously signed this document with his lawyer saying I won't defame him this and I bought his name name domain name keyword that's domain name and all that stuff. And then I had to hand that over and all that stuff as part of this agreement. And then I phoned him up after that and he said, "What is it?" And I says, "See that paperwork that I signed? Know what the paper that's written on?" And he was like, "You bastard." And all that. Down the phone. Um and he's obviously went away telling people uh he's a psychopath and he's a monster and all that stuff. I'm like, "But I'm not rolling over for 10 grand because you're a dick. Um I'm going to leverage my skills." So, that's where I shouldn't have done that and I wouldn't go out of my way to rank someone for that, but the threat of that was my only way of getting my money uh from him. Uh and rightly or wrongly, people can agree to disagree whether I done the right thing or not. But, like you said, you fall out with an SEO, you could be dealing with some loose cannon who can cause significant amounts of damage. So, Craig Campbell: Yeah. that is something you need to be very, very careful of as well. So, all right, that that's obviously a wee bit of a fun story, not something I'm overly proud of or anything, but I done it and it's done. James Dooley: It though. You threatened to do it to get to get the money. So, yeah. Craig Campbell: Cuz terms and conditions, the the most disgusting part of that whole conversation is to your terms and conditions that we have on the people who have that you get done from your website. James Dooley: Yeah. Yeah, that's great. So, anyone who's watching this, what horror stories do you have with regards to online branding, reputation management? Are you actually stuck at present with some negative stigma articles which are ranking for your name or business brand? If you are, make sure you reach out to myself or Craig. We can put you in touch with some of the best online reputation management companies that there is worldwide. Craig, it's been an absolute pleasure. Cheers.