MANAGING YOUR ONLINE IDENTITY

IN THE AGE OF GOOGLE

The Reputation Economy

Kimberley R. Barker, MLIS Manager for Technology Education & Computing

Claude Moore Health Sciences Library University of Virginia

Note

Though I used lots of resources when doing research for this presentation, I am especially indebted to Fertik & Thompson’s Wild West 2.0: How to Protect and Restore your Online Reputation on the Untamed Social Frontier

In this presentation:

Background on this class

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

Background

Way back in 2009… There was a Facebook class taught by Library faculty

In 2010… I created a class called “Your Online Identity”

Focused on

Privacy/security

What info was available (freely & for a price) about you • Physical

• Financial

• Arrests

How to find this information

How to remove this information

Background

In 2011…

Updated the Online Identity class

More info on the “deep web”

In 2012…

Updated the Online Identity class

• More info on reputation management

• In 2013…

Created the Reputation Economy class

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”

Nothing new to humans

Changes in technology mean that we use computers instead of the telephone or writing letters

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?

How would you react to an attack on your reputation?

Toni & Candace respond to a bad review on Yelp

Incidentally…

Recent 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%20Files/12-016.pdf

Google is King

Data from Hitwise, 1/21/2012

“Google Truth”

Defined as the automatic acceptance of Google results as an accurate representation of reality

Well…

“Don’t believe everything you read on the Internet”

- Abraham Lincoln

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.

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

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

How Google works (4 of 7)

Query processor

Multiple parts

Search box

“engine” that evaluates searches & matches to relevant documents

Results formatter

How Google works (5 of 7)

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))

How Google works (7 of 7)

Other algorithms

Google Panda Released in February 2011 Downgraded sites w/ poor user experiences

Google Penguin Downgraded rankings of sites that use “black hat”

techniques that trick the PageRank algorithm

Latest update in January 2013 Update to Google Panda

• Google has committed to updating its algorithm 500 times during the 2013 calendar year

Why did I just spend 7 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

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? •Reputation management professionals

•People just like you

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

Should individuals/institutions bother with ORM?

In my opinion, if you aren’t monitoring your reputation in the same way that your monitor your credit, you’re:

INSANE

Pew Internet & American Life’s Internet & Health Report 2012

http://www.pewinternet.org/Infographics/2013/Health-and-Internet-2012.aspx

Some online healthcare ranking sites

HealthGrades

Some healthcare online rating sites

RateMDs

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/

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.

Search results for me

Establishing a reputation management plan

• 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 doctors will be directed to sites such as HealthGrades, RateMDs, etc

•Accept the fact that no information does NOT equal a positive image and in fact can be viewed with suspicion

Reputation Restoration

First steps

You will be hurt, scared, and angry. Take some time to process your emotions.

Tell your family and trusted friends. You will need their support to get through this.

Realize that you are not the first person whose reputation has been damaged- you are not alone.

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.

Reputation Restoration (information drawn from

Chapter 12 of Wild West 2.0)

Understand the problem

Make a plan

Implement the plan

Understand the problem (WW 2.0, Chapter 12)

• What is the extent of the problem?

Perform an online reputation audit (see Chapter 10 of WW 2.0)

Comb carefully through first three pages of Google results, and then skim the next seven.

• 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- lie about your committing horrible act

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

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)

Also…

Sites like Yelp, Facebook, etc, are protected from being liable 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.”

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

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.

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.

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.

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

Claude Moore Health Sciences Library

We offer classes and consults on a wide range of topics!

Visit us online:

http://hsl.virginia.edu

www.Facebook.com/uvahsl

Contact me! Kimberley@virginia.edu

Further Resources

Wild West 2.0: How to protect and restore your online reputation on the untamed social frontier; Fertik & Thompson

The Reputation Society: How online opinions are reshaping the offline world; Masum & Tovey

How Google Works: http://www.googleguide.com/google_works.html

2012 Google Panda infographic

http://searchengineland.com/google-panda-update-112805

Further Resources

http://infolab.stanford.edu/~backrub/google.html

http://www.sirgroane.net/google-page-rank/

http://www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2013/Health-online/Part-Two/Section-2.aspx