Learn how to build, strengthen, and protect your most valuable asset with Librarian for Digital Life, Kimberley R. Barker. The University of Virginia.

1. The Reputation Economy
Managing Your Online Identity
in the Age of Google
Kimberley R. Barker, MLIS
Librarian for Digital Life
Claude Moore Health Sciences Library
University of Virginia

2. My Perspective
• Reputation management is not for:
– erasing the deeds of convicted criminals
(Brock Turner)
– erasing institutional history (UC Davis
Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi)
– erasing negative business reviews

3. In this presentation:
• Defining the “reputation economy”
• What is “Google Truth”?
• How does Google work?
• Defining online reputation management services
– Individual
– Corporate
• Establishing a reputation management plan
• Understanding the real-life ramifications of reputation
damage
• Reputation restoration
• Further resources

4. What is the “reputation
economy”?
• Refers to the way in which the standing of
a product/person/institution/business is
shaped by the contributions of end users.
• “wisdom of crowds”/crowdsourcing
– Nothing new
– Changes in technology mean that we use
computers instead of the telephone or
writing letters

5. Your own habits
• How many of you Google the following?
– Job candidates
– Dates
– Children’s friends/counselors/teachers
– Doctors
– Products
– Hotels
– Restaurants
• How much are you influenced by what you find?

6. Incidentally…
• 2011 report on Yelp ratings by Harvard
Business School assistant professor
Michael Luca:
– a one-star increase in the rating of an
independent restaurant leads to a 5 to 9
percent increase in revenue.
•http://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Publication%2
0Files/12-016.pdf

7. Why
?

8. Google was King
Data from Hitwise, 1/21/2012

9. Google is STILL King

10. “Google Truth”
• the automatic acceptance of Google results
as an accurate representation of reality

11. How Google works (1 of 7)
• Google is comprised of three distinct
parts
– Googlebot
– Indexer
– Query processor
• Each part has its own specific and unique
function.

12. How Google works (2 of 7)
• Googlebot
– Composed of 1000’s of computers engaged
in parallel processing:
•Requests & retrieves 1000’s of different pages
simultaneously; does this two ways
– “Add URL” forms
– Find links via web crawling
» Fresh crawls
» Deep crawls

13. How Google works (3 of 7)
• Indexer
– Receives full texts of pages from Googlebot;
stores them in databases
– Index sorts search terms alphabetically
•Ignores “stop words”
•Converts all text to lower-case
– Each entry in index stores list of documents
with that search term and also the location
within the text of that search term

14. How Google works (4 of 7)
•Query processor
Multiple parts
•Search box
•“engine” that evaluates
searches & matches to
relevant documents
•Results formatter

15. How Google works (5 of 7)

16. How Google works (6 of 7)
(It’s a popularity contest… sort of)
• PageRank
– Link analysis algorithm
– Page with higher rank displays higher in results
list
– Google uses over 100 factors to determine rank
– How is PR calculated?
•Basically, the more times that a page is linked to
determines its PR
– Built from this algorithm, which is used iteratively:
» PR(A) = (1-d) + d (PR(T1)/C(T1) + … + PR(Tn)/C(Tn))

17. How Google works (7 of 7)

18. Hummingbird
• Google replaced its algorithm in August 2013
• The preceding seven slides are still valid
• Hummingbird is semantic; i.e., based on
natural language queries
– Conversational search technology
– Uses Google’s Knowledge Graph
• Google is looking towards future
– 60% of Americans access Internet on mobile
device
– Spoken searches

19. Mobile-Friendly Update
• April 21, 2015
– Mobile-friendliness
•Tappable buttons
•Easy to navigate from a small screen
•Important information front &
center
– Mobile speed
– Desktop speed

20. Why did I just spend 9 slides
on Google?
• If you understand how Google works, you
will understand how to:
– Positively increase your online presence
– Monitor your reputation
– Formulate a basic reputation restoration plan
– Understand when you need to seek
professional help

21. What is ORM (online reputation
management)?
• Basically, “…the practice of making people and
businesses look their best on the Internet.”
www.reputation.com
• For whom is this service?
– Individuals
– Professionals
– Institutions
•Who can perform this service?
•People just like you
•Reputation management professionals

22. ORM is big business
• “American companies will spend $2.2
billion in 2012 for "reputation and
presence management," according to Jed
Williams, senior analyst for BIA / Kelsey, a
media-consulting firm based in Chantilly,
Va.By 2015, that sum will grow to $5
billion, says Williams.”
– “Can you erase your online blunders? With
effort, and luck, it's possible”; Lacitis, Erik;
Seattle Times; July 29, 2012

23. Should
individuals/institutions
bother with ORM?
• In my opinion, if you aren’t monitoring
your reputation in the same way that you
monitor your credit, you’re crazy.

24. • Do-it-yourself options have cropped up
– Brand Yourself
– Reputation-Fix
However, traditional RM
services are expensive

25. Why should healthcare
providers care about
reputation management?

26. No one is
caring about
it for you. 1/16/2015

27. Pew Internet & American Life’s
Internet & Health Report 2013
http://www.pewinternet.org/Infographics/2013
/Health-and-Internet-2012.aspx

28. “Rising Use
of Social &
Mobile in
Healthcare”
- 2012

29. Social Media &
Online Reputation matter

30. Some online
healthcare ranking sites
• HealthGrades

31. Some online
healthcare ranking sites
Rate MDs

32. Yelp again
• Study shows high Yelp rating correlates
with better Hospital outcomes
– Bardach NS, Asteria-peñaloza R, Boscardin WJ,
Adams dudley R. The relationship between
commercial website ratings and traditional hospital
performance measures in the USA. BMJ Qual Saf.
2012.
• http://www.imedicalapps.com/2013/02/yelp-hospital-
outcomes/

33. But then there’s this:
• “Fake It Till You Make It:
Reputation, Competition, and Yelp Review
Fraud”
– Investigated economic incentives for creating
fake reviews for self or competitor
http://people.hbs.edu/mluca/fakeittillyouma
keit.pdf

34. Establishing a
reputation management plan
• Begin monitoring your online presence
– Good
•Search for your name at least once per month
–Best
• Create a search alert for your name
•Check your privacy settings on all social media
•Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc
•Feed your online presence with positive content
•Blogging, Tweeting, profile sites, YouTube,
professional directories, newsletters, etc.

35. Examples of Positive Content
Kimberley R. Barker vs. Kimberley Barker

36. • Be aware of who might be looking for information
about you
•Think about to what sites Google will direct
searchers
•E.g., those searching for information on professors will
be directed to sites such as HealthGrades, etc
•Accept the fact that no information does NOT equal a
positive image and, in fact, can be viewed with
suspicion
Establishing a
reputation management plan

37. Establishing a reputation
management plan (TL; DR)
• “6 Steps To Managing Your Online
Reputation”
– Search yourself
– Buy your domain name
– Put all of your content in one place
– Join social networks
– Optimize your presence on those sites
– Keep private things private; assume nothing is
private

38. Reputation Restoration
•First steps
–Take time to process your emotions.
–You will need the support of family and
friends.
–Realize that you are not the first
person whose reputation has been
damaged- you are not alone.

39. Reputation Restoration
– Realize that there exist tools to restore your
good name.
– Assess the damage; if severe, consult a
professional reputation management
consultant immediately. Accept that you
cannot repair the damage on your own and
that the issue won’t just go away.
– DO NOT respond with posts of your own.

40. Reputation Restoration
(information drawn from
Chapter 12 of Wild West 2.0)
• Understand the problem
• Make a plan
• Implement the plan

41. Understand the problem I
(WW 2.0, Chapter 12)
• What is the extent of the problem?
•Perform an online reputation
audit (see Chapter 10 of WW 2.0)
•Google your name; check the
first three pages of results.

42. Understand the Problem II
•Find the source of negative content
• Use an Internet archive provider to check the
URL’s of negative content. Try to determine
where it began.
•Determine whether it is accidental or deliberate
• accidental- “name collision”- reinforcing cycle
• Deliberate- a lie about you; legitimate
complaint

43. Make a plan
(WW 2.0)
• Create a recovery road map
– As in Chapter 10: create list of people who might
search for you
– Create list of sites to which they are directed
– Prioritize which sites to repair first- some smears
easier to repair than others
• Create recovery goals
– Be realistic: it may be impossible to completely
expunge false information- News sites and some
blogs will may always show up in top 10 results and
only feeding positive content (and time) can remedy
that.
– Pushing negative content to bottom of search results
may be just as effective

44. Make a Plan
• Create recovery goals
– Be realistic: it may be impossible to
completely expunge false information-
News sites and some blogs will may
always show up in top 10 results and
only feeding positive content (and
time) can remedy that.
– Pushing negative content to bottom of
search results may be just as effective

45. Implement your plan
(WW 2.0)
• Try to find a human
– Contact page administrator via form or email
– CALMLY explain the problem- you need
his/her help!
– If a human will not help you, figure out
from where that website is drawing its
false information. Try to correct the
information at the source (claim your
online identity, etc)

46. Also…
• Sites like Yelp, Facebook, HealthGrades, etc,
are protected from liability for content on
their sites by section 230 of the
Communication Decency Act (CDA 230), part
of the 1996 Telecommunications Act:
– “no provider or user of an interactive computer
service shall be treated as the publisher or
speaker of any information provided by another
information content provider.”

47. Implement your plan
(WW 2.0 Chapter 12)
• Malicious attacks
– Determine seriousness of threat & frequency
•If a one-off, let it fade away
•If dedicated, persistent attacker, understand that
no matter what you do, this person may continue
to spread lies.
•Try to identify attacker
– Sometimes use info known only to a few
– Sometimes pseudonym is a clue
– Try through legal means- understand expensive and
lengthy

48. Implement your plan
(WW 2.0, Chapter 12)
• Choose your strategy
– Fight back directly
– Try to resolve offline (but proceed carefully)
– Try to isolate negative content indirectly; i.e.,
“Google walls”
•Create more positive & neutral content than
attacker creates negative. Play the Google
algorithm.

49. Implement your plan:
Claim as many corners of the web as you can!
about.me

50. How does reputation restoration
work?• Remember all of those slides about Google?
• ORM professionals will always be more effective than
an individual simply because they can devote more
resources to it.

51. The future of ORM
• Just as institutions have attorneys, they
will have contracts with reputation
management companies which cover:
– Institution itself
– Individuals who have support of the
institution
After all, the reputations of its individuals
affects the reputation of the institution.

52. Don’t be an ostrich!
• Not only SHOULD you not ignore your
online identity, but you soon WILL NOT be
able to
• The way in which you respond to
legitimate criticism can in fact bolster
your reputation (individual or institution)
– Yelp example from Atlanta

53. Further Resources
• Wild West 2.0: How to protect and restore
your online reputation on the untamed social
frontier; Fertik & Thompson (available
digitally in Virgo)
• “Fake it Til You Make It: Reputation,
Competition, and Yelp Review Fraud”
http://people.hbs.edu/mluca/fakeittillyoumak
eit.pdf

54. Further Resources
• “The Reputation Society: How online opinions
are reshaping the offline world”;
http://www.hassanmasum.com/
reputationsociety
• “How hospitals hope to boost ratings on Yelp,
HealthGrades, ZocDoc and Vitals
“https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-
science/sites-like-yelp-can-be-tough-but-hospitals-
embrace-online-reviews/2015/06/03/a07a68b6-fe63-
11e4-805c-c3f407e5a9e9_story.html

55. Further Resources
• How Google Works
– http://www.googleguide.com/google_works.html
• The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web
Search Engine
– http://infolab.stanford.edu/~backrub/google.
Html
• Page Rank
– http://www.sirgroane.net/google-page-rank/

56. Further Resources
• “6 Steps To Managing Your Online Reputation”
– http://www.forbes.com/sites/susanadams/201
3/03/14/6-steps-to-managing-your-online-
reputation/#175ee16ec1ac
• “Scrubbed”
http://nymag.com/news/features/online-
reputation-management-2013-6/index2.html

57. Further Resources
• Pew Internet & American Life- Health
– http://www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2013/
Health-online/Part-Two/Section-2.aspx
• Pew Internet & American Life- Mobile
– http://pewinternet.org/Commentary/2012/
February/Pew-Internet-Mobile.aspx

58. Get in touch!
Kimberley@virginia.edu
• I am available for:
– Department meetings
– Committee meetings
– Small groups
– One-on-one consults
• Topics
• Reputation management
• Digital privacy
• Personal branding
• Emerging technology
• Social media