The City of Windsor is not normally in the habit of buying domain names with .xxx at the end. Indeed, it seems a little bizarre that they would be buying domain names meant for adult entertainment websites. But the reasoning is pretty sound.

To avoid any indecent Internet exposure, some of the city’s biggest institutions are snapping up corresponding domain names ending in “.xxx” to make sure they are never bought by or associated with adult entertainment websites.Mary Rodgers, who works in marketing and communications at the city, said the IT department had just purchased www.citywindsor.xxx on Tuesday.

“It’s to protect our reputation,” Rodgers said. “We’re not going to use it, but we own it.”

If they own it–no one else can use it for adult-themed purposes. It’s a bit of reputation management through domain purchasing.

Transparency is what every company should seek to achieve online–companies that are easy to contact and communicate with suffer the least from online defamation. This is true for online reputations, too.

A lot will change when it comes to the future of online reputation, but one thing looks to remain static: transparency will always be important so users know on what grounds their reputations are being established.Interestingly, that goes for both service providers and their users. On the provider side, Yahoo’s Luke Beatty, it’s VP and GM of community, thinks that users understand that the way sites operate and rank them will change. However, he said, “I don’t think anyone has a problem with the change as much as they have a problem with the transparency.”

Transparency only creates a problem insofar as it exposes people to the danger of online defamation and perhaps issues like stalking or identity theft.

If you care at all about your search engine reputation, then you should monitor your web reputation.

In order to monitor what is happening online you can set up Yahoo and Google Alerts. You can customize RSS readers for the purpose of brand tracking. You may take the help of sites such as Feedster and Technorati, which will allow you to watch your brand in blogs. Track all the names including company names, brand names, product names as well as key employee names. Do not forget to monitor the industry-related websites.

Monitoring search engine results is something just about everyone should do. It is not just for celebrities or online companies, but also for the average person.

There are so many reasons to follow the online reputation management industry. The most obvious reason is, of course, it is an industry that has experienced incredible growth and will likely continue to. This is because there is a massive need for online reputation management right now as the laws governing the Internet, or trying to, struggle to deal with the issue of online defamation.

The Internet is awash with online defamation–so the rise of online reputation management has been predictable. However, it helps that the industry is able to evolve along with the problem. Online reputation management will likely become an even bigger industry because of online reputation’s increasing importance.

There are a host of videos online which discuss online reputation management. These videos are usually very informative and can help any person to more fully understand online reputation management. At this blog we try to highlight those videos as well as providing some basic commentary on them. It is a service that is mostly thankless, but nevertheless needed.

If you find any videos on online reputation management, please feel free to post them in a comment or email them to us. We are always happy to see new material and you may see it in the next post!

It is not often that you see online reputation management being discussed online. This video opens up with talks about privacy on The Early Show, which is on CBS. The young man representing the reputation management industry does a very good job of presenting the fundamental issues and the solutions that ORM professionals try to offer.

The truth is that online reputation management is not an industry that is very well understood. The more positive press, like this, that we get, the better. Digital lifestyle expert Mario Armstrong is as good of a representative as I’ve seen for the industry. The discussion on The Early Show is good because it reaches a demographic who likely know little about the industry.

The Internet is all about user-generated content right now, and what that means is that often very negative rumors or statements can find life on the Internet where they would be unable to find life on TV or in newspapers. For this reason, everyone from graduating college students to high profile CEOs are turning to the online reputation management services for help. Negative content online can come from all quarters, anyone from your ex-girlfriend to random malcontents on the Internet. This interview is a pretty good one about the phenomenon of reputation management.

This video sums up pretty well how many professionals in the online reputation management industry look at their jobs. The guy getting interviewed is a professional from Australia, so naturally there are some technical differences between the industry there and here in the States, but the same basic rubric applies.

This video, which I stumbled across on Youtube, is a great resource for any blogger who is also concerned with Internet reputation management. This video answers a very popular question–what effect, if any, will a blog-roll render upon a website’s google search results. The short answer is: Yes, it can have an effect. No, that effect is not always good. But honestly, Matt Cutts is the man to explain this, not me.

Reputation management services professionals would do well to listen to Matt Cutts, he is responsible for making some of the most important decisions regarding Google, search results, and online reputation.

Essentially any advice or wisdom Matt Cutts has for me, I am more than willing to listen to.  To do otherwise would just be foolish hubris–Cutts is the undisputed guru of all things reputation management.

Car dealerships depend more on their online reputations than most other businesses because they exist in such a competitive environment. Car dealerships get many of their leads these days from online searchers. The old way of shopping for cars was to physically drive around to each dealership looking at prices and cars while being harassed by pushy salesmen. Luckily, that dynamic has changed somewhat–people search for good deals on cars online.

An online reputation is an important thing to almost every business.  Google Reputation Management can help to prepare a damaged online reputation, or prevent one from being damaged to begin with.

Andrew Keen is a good source to go for opinions on online libel or defamation–he has a lot to say that is worth listening to. CNN’s American Morning tried covering the issue of online reputation management. Andrew Keen did a good job of explaining the issue, though he certainly could have done better in some respects. While you can tell the anchors understand the material, they certainly do not have the grasp of the material that is required in order to truly discuss the root problems of this issue.

If you want to watch the video, click here.

The video is well-worth watching, if only more shows took an interest. American Morning on CNN–thank you!

SEOmoz is a trusted name in online reputation management. CEO Rand Fishkin is a guru of Internet privacy issues, SEO, and yes, online reputation. His series of videos, known as whiteboard fridays, is wonderful. In the video featured here, he discusses google reputation management.

Rand Fishkin Discussing Brand Management

The best part of the video comes right at the beginning, when Rand Fishkin discusses which websites and tools you can use to monitor your online reputation. This is a crucial part of monitoring your brand management effectively. Knowing the problem is half the battle, right? Well, Rand Fishkin is helping to inform you for the battle! His tips are Google News, Google Blogs, Technorati, Digg, and several others. The video is well worth watching, so do so!