Why Your Online Reputation Is More Important Than Ever

In December, there was one story I followed that completely fascinated me.

It all started with a November 26 New York Times article my dad forwarded. The article was “A Bully Finds a Pulpit on the Web.”

The article detailed the business practices of Vitaly Borker, a man who essentially misrepresented his products and then bullied his customers when they asked for replacement products or refunds.

According to Borker, ridiculing and threatening his customers boosted his bottom line. In his own words (“Stanley” is Borker):

“Hello, My name is Stanley with DecorMyEyes.com,” the post began. “I just wanted to let you guys know that the more replies you people post, the more business and the more hits and sales I get. My goal is NEGATIVE advertisement.”

It’s all part of a sales strategy, [Borker] said. Online chatter about DecorMyEyes, even furious online chatter, pushed the site higher in Google search results, which led to greater sales. He closed with a sardonic expression of gratitude: “I never had the amount of traffic I have now since my 1st complaint. I am in heaven.”

Well, as the saying goes, loose lips sink ships. Such was the case here.

As soon as the New York Times published its exposé, it began to go viral among SEO, marketing, and technology web sites.

Google responded quickly:

By treating your customers badly, one merchant told the paper, you can generate complaints and negative reviews that translate to more links to your site; which, in turn, make it more prominent in search engines. The main premise of the article was that being bad on the web can be good for business.

We were horrified to read about Ms. Rodriguez’s dreadful experience. Even though our initial analysis pointed to this being an edge case and not a widespread problem in our search results, we immediately convened a team that looked carefully at the issue. That team developed an initial algorithmic solution, implemented it, and the solution is already live. I am here to tell you that being bad is, and hopefully will always be, bad for business in Google’s search results.

But the backlash didn’t stop here. Borker’s behavior toward customers went beyond “bad”; it was criminal.

On December 6, 2010 — just 10 days after the initial New York Times story broke — Borker was arrested in Brooklyn where he lives.

While this is an extreme case, there are a few lessons to learn here.

1. Be careful of what you say or do online. Sometimes information travels faster than a rumor in Washington.

2. Bad customer service is always a bad strategy. Boasting about bad customer service is even worse.

3. The Internet never forgets. What you say or do online (even behind “closed doors”) could end up living for decades on the Internet.

4. Never taunt Google. You’ll get slapped from Google’s 1st page of results all the way to Bing.

5. Take an active role in managing your online reputation. It could mean the difference between failure and success online.

-Ryan M. Healy