The Trust Foundation Understanding trust issues in the digital era.

“Most reputation services work by tracking what's written about a client on the Web, then doing search engine optimization, promoting positive pages, and creating other sites that will push damaging references off the first pages of search results. The services are pitched as another tool companies can use in their PR and marketing efforts.

It's still hard to say how companies are using reputation management services, but industry players say clients fall into two camps. Some want to understand and respond to customer complaints; others often just want negative posts to go away. "The majority of inquiries that I get are from people who are looking to do a cover-up," says Andy Beal, a marketing consultant and co-author of Radically Transparent: Monitoring and Managing Reputations Online. "They're not necessarily interested in trying to fix the problem. They just want to make sure that other people can't find it."”

As the social media explode, more online reputation management tools started to emerge in the past three years. Many companies are becoming aware that there is a need to have some sort of online reputation tracking. There is absolutely nothing wrong with using these online reputation management tools but if the company uses unorthodox methods to bump up ranking of certain websites, Google vow to take actions. Read more about it here.