I have recently gotten into SEO/SEM reputation management work, and I encountered Rip Off Report on a professional level. Wondering why it was so hard to get Rip Off Report away from the top of Google, I started reading up all the many articles on Google and Rip Off Report. The site clearly breaks many of Google's guidelines, yet it continues to rank at the top of Google. Rip off Report's legitimacy is that of a mobster, yet Google continues to reward them with a rather high rank.

Now here we are with some brand new search options for Google, one of them being reviews from users. This is about as scary as things can get for a small company that cares about online reputation and search engine reputation management. An ex employee, a competitor or a disgruntled customer can make as many Yelp accounts as they please and bash you to kingdom come. Will Yelp do anything about it? The answer is no. One of my clients recently received a review saying they were a total scam, and ranted on about the company. I contacted Yelp and they refused to take down the review or hear our side of the story. Our customers/businesses that we work with simply do not have the time to go and write reviews, so now this Yelp review is now brought up on Google easily for the world to see. It went from pages 4-5 in Google to now being the number one spot in reviews. 

Situations like this make me worry what if we enter a new era of paying writers, bloggers, etc. to write positive reviews about a company and then turn around and write negative reviews on competition. I would really like to hear everyone’s opinion on this though. Am I just over exaggerating or does this seem like a step backwards? What can legitimate practitioners of reputation management do against this?

Can't wait to hear all your thoughts!