Googlewashing? There’s Likely No Need

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What’s Googlewashing? Bet you wished you watched the video, huh?

Just kidding.

(Oh, feed subscribers, please click through if you can’t see the MSNBC video above.)

Googlewashing is the process of burying negative results about your company in Google. Some companies offer to go into Google and delete those results for you. Should you spend money on this? Probably not, and here’s why.

People are going to be unsatisfied sometimes even if you do your absolute best. The important thing is what you do about it.
Trying to look perfect is inauthentic.
If it’s out there, even if it gets buried or “deleted”, there’s a copy on a server somewhere that will eventually pop up. Just because someone can get one copy to get deleted from a site, or move to page 11 from page 2 doesn’t mean it’s gone forever.

It’s smarter to first, address the problems. Listen to your clients. Win them over with your ability to listen. Look what it did for Dell. If there are negative results in Google about your company, Address Them. Every single negative mark against you can make you 100 new fans/potential clients if you take the time to turn them in your favor.

Once you’re addressed issues, instead of trying to get them deleted (which isn’t really possible anyway), overhwhelm the negative results with positive ones.

Even a little bit of marketing your expertise and proven results is better than trying to pretend some unfortunate incident never happened.

Believe me, I’ve been there. I’m still trying to patch up a couple of snafus from last year when I was sick. And from experience I’ll tell you that even if you can’t provide a ready solution, letting people know you plan to and showing that you’re an established company that won’t/can’t disappear overnight makes a big difference.

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February 28, 2008 | Filed Under Google

Comments

4 Responses to “Googlewashing? There’s Likely No Need”

Kitchen Cabinets Los Angeles (1 comments.) on March 2nd, 2008 2:59 am

I’d heard a little about this and actually had the idea a couple of years ago just never went through with it. I can see the high demand for it, if you look at the big companies out there wanting to keep their “polished” reputations clean. I searched for a moment but couldnt find any decent stories about real people using it.

Ahhhh, god bless america huh?

Tommy.
Tinu Abayomi-Paul (47 comments.) on March 2nd, 2008 8:21 pm

Welcome Tommy,

What’s sad is how the companies with the most resources are the most out of touch about how to solve simple things in new technologies. Larger corporations can afford to do much better than things like Google washing.

Of course, I also like to think of them as “real people” too. So God Bless ALL of America. And everybody else too.
Tom (2 comments.) on March 7th, 2008 4:23 pm

Check this site out.
Tom (2 comments.) on March 7th, 2008 4:30 pm

Sorry guys let me try that again.

http://www.googlewashing.com

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