Reputation Armor

In today’s information driven age Reputation Armor (ReputaitonArmor.com) is aware that the protection of individuals’ digital privacy is vital. Reputation Armor provides a means for individuals to control what is see about them online. But unfortunately, the laws in place that protect the right of privacy of information are old and outdated. For this reason Reputation Armor is excited about the proposed reformation to the Electronic Communications Protection Act.

Reputation Armor notes that an alliance of the internet’s largest online service providers, including Google and Microsoft, are getting together with the top internet rights groups to demand Congress modernize the nation’s privacy laws.

They call themselves the Digital Due Process coalition and among the reformation they are pushing is a requirement that law enforcement get warrants from a judge when they want to compel companies to turn over your e-mails, documents and location data. Reputation Armor has supported this kind of reformation for years.

The coalition declared four principles that are at the heart of their call to reformation in a conference call with reporters March 30^th 2010. The group says they’ve briefed the White House, the FBI and Congress on the proposed changes and expect hearings this year. Congress isn’t expected to act before 2011, because of a jam-packed legislative agenda.

With the transformation in technology over the years, Reputation Armor has observed the need to modernize the nation’s electronic privacy law, known as the 1986 Electronic Communications Protection Act.

According to Jim Dempsey of the Center for Democracy and Technology, “With the emergence of location services and the transfer of a huge amount of data to the cloud and our huge reliance on cloud storage of e-mail messages, the law has become outdated and needs to be updated,” Dempsey said in the conference call.

When the law was originally created, e-mail was almost always downloaded from a central server to a user’s computer. Any messages left after 180 days were considered abandoned, so the law allows police to obtain any e-mail older than six months merely by issuing a subpoena - meaning no judge is involved. Reputation Armor (ReputationArmor.com) finds this astonishing and irresponsible. If those e-mails had been downloaded to a user’s computer and removed from the server, the police would need a search warrant, based on probable cause, to get at them.

As Reputation Armor sees it, and according to Dempsey, in an age when Americans store gigabytes of e-mails on Yahoo’s, Google’s and Microsoft’s servers, those different standards make no sense and the law should be platform independent. Reputation Armor agrees.

The following information brought to you by Reputation Armor, can be found @ digitaldueprocess.org.

* Denotes an observations by Reputation Armor

The Principles of the Digital Due Process Coalition

Overarching goal and guiding principle: To simplify, clarify, and unify the ECPA standards, providing stronger privacy protections for communications and associated data in response to changes in technology and new services and usage patterns, while preserving the legal tools necessary for government agencies to enforce the laws, respond to emergency circumstances and protect the public.

These principles would not change, and are subject to, the current definitions, exceptions, immunities and permissions in ECPA.

• A governmental entity may require an entity covered by ECPA (a provider of wire or electronic communication service or a provider of remote computing service) to disclose communications that are not readily accessible to the public only with a search warrant issued based on a showing of probable cause, regardless of the age of the communications, the means or status of their storage or the provider’s access to or use of the communications in its normal business operations.

*Reputation Armor thinks this is a great point. The government would need a warrant to tap a phone in a residence or to read get access to U.S postal mail. Why not email?

• A governmental entity may access, or may require a covered entity to provide, prospectively or retrospectively, location information regarding a mobile communications device only with a warrant issued based on a showing of probable cause.

* Reputation Armor questions how in 2010 the subject of probable cause in relation to the privacy of information is still in question.

• A governmental entity may access, or may require a covered entity to provide, prospectively or in real time, dialed number information, email to and from information or other data currently covered by the authority for pen registers and trap and trace devices only after judicial review and a court finding that the governmental entity has made a showing at least as strong as the showing under 2703(d).

• Where the Stored Communications Act authorizes a subpoena to acquire information, a governmental entity may use such subpoenas only for information related to a specified account(s) or individual(s). All non-particularized requests must be subject to judicial approval.

Reputation Armor and its entire staff are adamant about privacy rights. The Reputation Armor staff also recommends that people become informed about these rights. For more information on this subject visit, www.digitalDueProcess.org.

Reputation Armor Reports: A New Online Review Site Aimed At Individuals Has Launched that Could Cause a Reputation Management Nightmare.

Does RipOff Report make you nervous?

You’re not alone. The site keeps countless business owners awake through the night. It takes just one discontented customer or malevolent competitor to establish an online reputation management nightmare for your company. Reputation Armor clients have had a trying time with RoRs  over the years.

Ok, so visualize a service that could do the same for an individual’s reputation.

No need to imagine it-it just launched!

Although the site is in invite-only beta, we do know it is pretty much LinkedIn meets Yelp meets Wikipedia. Yes you can claim your personal profile. Yes, there are some safeguards to avert flat-out defamation or mischievous reviews. And, yes, the reviews can be moderated by the community. What’s not present, however, might be the formula Unvarnished to grow to be the RoR of individual reputations:

You can claim your profile, but unlike LinkedIn, every post must be accepted. Also once the profile is up it CANNOT be deleted. When co-founder, Peter Kazanjy was asked, “Will you ever give users the option to take down their profile?” he replied “No, because if we did that, everyone would take their profile down.” Not exactly the answer Reputation Management was hoping for.

The fact that Reputation Armor finds most concerning is that reviews can be left anonymously. Reputation Armor is waiting for the day when reviewers are held responsible for their comments

With no moderation by the recipient, anonymous reviewers, pooled with an lack of ability for a resolved subject to be edited, is the blueprint that made RipOff Report reviled by so many.

The site is still in beta-and maybe Unvarnished won’t get the toehold it needs to have any impact on your online reputation. All that being said, if there was ever a doubt that individuals need reputation management, the mere fact that a site like this is on its way, may dissolve that doubt.

For more information about Unvarnished.com visit getUnvarnished.com

What is the difference between DoFollow and NoFollow Back Links?

Reputation Armor receives this question from time to time from our clients. So we would like to clarify the distinction between the two. These two terms are paramount in SEO vocabulary.

In order to talk links, we must discuss basic hyperlink code.

The following hyperlink, when added to a page, would direct the user to ReputationArmor.com by clicking on a link that looks like Reputation Armor

<a href=”http://www.reputationarmor.com”>Reputation Armor </a>

The same hyperlink with the NoFollow code added to it would direct the user to the same site,

Reputation Armor, but would not transfer any “Link Juice” to it.

<a rel=”nofollow” href=”http://www.reputationarmor.com”>Reputation Armor </a>

When the NoFollow code is added to a hyperlink, It tells any Search engine bot that happens upon it while crawling, “FYI, Do NOT crawl through this link & Don’t give it any of my search engine credit”

Do Follow links

Actually, any link that is NOT a No Follow link is a Do Follow link. In other words, every link is DoFollow unless specified otherwise.

So why would someone choose to assign a NoFollow tag to a link.

There are different reasons one would want to use the “nofollow” tag, here are a couple:

1)  Google recommends this for paid links. In essence, your sites page rank leaks a small amount of rank juice to the sites you link to (which in turn helps ranking. The principle of link building is to get that “Link Juice” from other sites).

2) NoFollow tags are used often on blogs. The main reason being, people looking to get some of the “Juice” from that blog will leave a comment (with a link back to their page) and then some link juice from that blog is then transferred to their site. Often times the comments are nothing but spam, and are of no relevance to the post.

What is the Google dance?

Reputation Armor has heard the term “the Google Dance”, to refer to a couple different things. Although only one is actually correct. It’s a 3 to 5 day phase of time when Google is rejuvenating its rankings, and results ebb and flow widely.

How Often Does The Google Dance Happen?

In the past the name “Google Dance” was used to describe the period in which a key index update of the Google search engine was being executed.   Reputation Armor found on average that these major Google index updates occurred on every 36 days or 10 times per year. Reputation Armor observes that the easiest method to identify this was noting the significant changes in search results, and by an updating of Google’s cache of all indexed pages. These changes would fluctuate from one minute to the next.

Because Google’s users (including the Reputation Armor staff) rely on it to deliver authoritative reliable results 24/7, updates pose a serious issue. They can’t afford to shut down for maintenance or go offline for even one minute. Therefore, the Dance. Every search engine goes through it, some more or less often than Google. However, it is only because of Google’s prominence that we pay attention to its rebuild more than that of any other engine.

Around 2003 Reputation Armor found that the Google Dance became far less dramatic.

Now at some stage in any month there will be slight changes in rankings. This is because Google’s bot or spider is ceaselessly running and finding new material. It also happens because the bot may have detected that a website no longer exists, and needs to be deleted from the index. Reputation Armor notes that most importantly, the Googlebot will revisit every website, figure out how many sites link to it, and how many it links out to, and how valuable these links are.

Because Google is constantly crawling and updated selected pages, Reputation Armor has established that search results will differ slightly over the course of the month. On the other hand, it is only during the Google Dance that these results fluctuate wildly. Reputation Armor also considers that Google has numerous data centers, sharing over 10,000 servers. Somehow, the updates to the index that transpire during the month, and outside of the Google Dance have to get transferred throughout. It’s a steady process for Google. These constant, incremental updates only affect portions of the index at any one time.

What the Google Dance Means to Reputation Armor and Our Clients

Reputation Armor technicians spend a great deal of time studying the algorithmic nature of Google. Because a Reputation Armor online reputation management campaign relies so heavily on Google results, we pay close attention to every aspect of change in these results. Although an important aspect, our lead technician has advised the rest of the Reputation Armor team that “the dance” is not nearly as important as what takes shape when the dust settles.

A huge portion of an online reputation management (ORM) campaign with Reputation Armor is Reverse Search Engine Optimization (SEO). The question is, what is reverse SEO, and how does it help in concerns to reputation management?

Negative results on search engines are a pestilence to companies that do business online. Simply put, Reverse SEO is the practice of replacing the negative with the positive. Review sites and forums are content rich websites that are frequently updated with user generated content; this is the exact kind of thing that search engine crawlers look for.  And basically, any negative comments or posts they have about you or your company is going to rank well on the first page of the search results. This content is extremely hard to move in the search results, which is what Reputation Armor (ReputationArmor.com) does when using reverse SEO techniques.

Reputation Armor starts by analyzing the negative results to find what factors are making the negative page rank so high. Then the goal is to start creating better content and optimizing so that it outranks the negative review.

Sound straightforward?

Well it’s not as effortless as it sounds. The Reputation Armor technicians have been studying the way search engines determine the “relevancy” of pages for over 10 years. In the first couple years, a very intense; trial and error method was employed in order to find out what works and what doesn’t. However, the study of the algorithmic language of search engines doesn’t end there. Reputation Armor is very aware of the ever changing world of SEO. We pride ourselves in always being on the cutting edge of the industry.

That is where the problem rests with a lot of the reputation management companies in operation. Just because a method works today, doesn’t mean it will work tomorrow.

A growing number of companies are starting to see the value of a proactive online reputation management approach. Reputation Armor observes, through our clients, how much time and money could be saved through this approach. Boasting a strong, preemptive online reputation is crucial at a time when the negative comes knocking at the door of a company.  The chief reasoning behind this is it is negative results will have a harder time penetrating all the anticipatory effort in the first place.

Remove Rip Off Reports Service

We can help you remove rip off reports. If there is a rip off report (RipOffReport.com) link appearing high within Google’s search results, there is only one thing you can do to fix the problem. The solution to removing a rip off report link is to actually push it down further in the search engines. The website ripoffreport.com simply will NEVER remove the rip off report. Even if you sue them (or try to), even if it is a lie (most are), even if the person who filed the complaint asks for the to remove it, they won’t do it

Remove Rip Off Reports with SEO and By Playing The Search Engines in Your Favor.

By launching an aggressive search engine marketing and saturation campaign we can push negative links, complaints , bad reviews, and rip off reports down further within search results.

Remember it is nearly Impossible to make rip off report remove the complaint about you and/or make Google remove the link that shows up on search results.

By removing the rip off report from the top of search results you will be replacing the bad with good. A positive search engine image campaign is the most effective way to push down a rip off report. We have 6 years of experience in search engine optimization and search engine reputation management (SERM).

How long does it take to remove rip off reports?

It takes time and sometimes more time. Removing a rip off report is not an overnight venture. For individual reputation management (A rip off report against your name) it in most cases takes 4-6 Weeks. Sometimes it can be longer depending on your name, the age of the complaint, where the rip off report ranks, and how many results overall are on Google for your name.

Removing a rip off report about a business name or product name can take the same amount of time or longer. I have seen some rip off reports move within 4 weeks and some that can take 4 months. It really all depends on the name of the business and the other factors mentioned above.

In short: It takes time to remove a rip off report, especially if you want lasting results.

How much does it cost to remove rip off reports?

Some reputation management companies have a flat rate price for pushing back rip off reports. We find this an impossible option to offer. Having a flat rate price to removing a rip off report is usually a sign that the company is simply trying to make a sale and possibly not deliver true results. To push down a rip off report, it takes a budget. As a SEO or Reputation Management firm you must spend hundreds of dollars on backlinks, paid reviews, domains, directories and more. Factor in the time and attention needed to organize and execute an effective campaign to push down the complaints and it can get expensive.

We have a price guideline we follow. The prices range from $1500 and up depending on certain factors. Rarely do we see any campaigns go over $4500 or under $1500.

The best thing to do is contact us for a rock bottom price quote. We have reduced our fees as much as possible in recent months to contend with the bad economy.

Contact us today for help removing rip off reports. We guarantee positive results or we will refund our service fees 100%.

Call Us: 1-888-358-ARMOR

Make sure you have a strong online presence. Social networking sites are not just used by young professionals. You and/or your business need to stay up-to-date. Present and future clients, customers, business contacts, and potential employers will look you up. The information they find can affect their buying or hiring decisions. If you don’t want others knowing certain things about you, keep in mind that you control what information you post.

Think before you post. Things you put on your websites and forum sites can and will come back to haunt you. Any pictures you show or updates you write are public. Even if your account has privacy settings activated, your information is never completely secure. If you are questioning whether your post is appropriate, ask yourself, would you get into trouble if your boss saw it? If the answer is “yes,” don’t post it!

Reputation Armor notes: “Facebook’s 400 million users are under attack by spam that could contaminate their computers with malicious software designed to steals passwords and other data, according to security researchers at McAfee.” Reputation Armor wants our clients and loyal readers to know that if you get an e-mail from Facebook saying that they have reset your password and you must download a file to reclaim it, DO NOT open the file. Facebook states that they will never automatically reset your password for you; they will require you to go through a process to change it.

Reputation Armor observes that in the age we live in, users can never be careful enough about internet privacy and safety. When in doubt, never open or respond to a message or email.  The use of email scanning software can greatly reduce, although not eliminate, the chance of computer infection by means of malicious mail. At ReputationArmor.com we have also seen the rise in individuals falling victim to scams and spam that originate on social networking sites. We find that the reason people are more prone to these sort of attacks is that they feel comfortable sharing personal information there and feel that they are safe from outside assailants.

The Reputation Armor team is not only passionate about our clients Online Reputations, but their Web Security as well.

CompanyPond is an online profile site that allows you to create a highly visible profile about your company. The site does very well on search engines and is a great tool to use when trying to build or repair your online reputation.

ReputationArmor.com would like to create a CompanyPond profile for all of our clients, but we can’t make a profile without having access to an email address within your company (anything@YOURCOMPANYNAME.com). CompanyPond.com requires you to use an email address that is from your company website, which means you can not use any free email providers or your ISP’s email. They do this for verification reasons I suppose and do not what just anyone to be able to create an account about your business (Good Idea).

Jump on companypond.com and get started on creating your profile there. If you want to create a profile for an indiviuals name or the CEO of a company, you will need to use their sister website PeoplePond.com.

Check out Reputation Armor on CompanyPond and see what a profile looks like!