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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

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!