You Guessed it – RipOffReport.com is becoming one of the most hated websites in the small business world.
While on the face the website looks like a great tool for consumers to use to report scams and online frauds, in reality this website is used by many to shame and discredit legitimate businesses and professionals.
There is not a mechanism for control or real ethical moderation of content posted on Ripoffreport.com, and this is why the website is so dangerous to small businesses everywhere. There will always be fake reviews and fake complaints online, but there will never be a more damaging and harmful website as “negatively powerful” and evil as ripoffreport. The devil himself must have had a touch in the websites creation or evolution.
RipOffReport is the most abused review system online and anytime a business name is added to the site you can bet your ASSets that there will be a little nasty ROR link on page one of Google Search Results for that businesses name, phone number, or website. This is a very dangerous situation and every business and professional is at risk. With great power comes great responsibility and ROR is powerful, but where is the responsibility? The site and ownership hide behind a digital veil and a law called the Communications Decency Act (CDA Sec. 230), which basically says a website or host is not legally responsible for the content am internet or site user posts on their website. The law makes sense but is lacking provisions that require proper moderation of possible defamation, and lies.
Anyone with a computer and email address (Gmail or Yahoo Mail) can go on the site a ruin someones small business, life, family and finances. Not to mention put a huge emotional strain and stress on the victim.
So what can someone do to protect themselves from ROR? Nothing. Well, you could make sure you never make anyone angry, jealous, mad, upset, or even notice you have a small business. You could just not own a business at all and go broke! Not an option I know. But really… What can one do to protect themselves? Honestly, there is little to stop it from happening but there are some proactive reputation management measures you can take to help lessen the negative impact of a ROR complaint. There are also many reactive measures you can explore and one of the is obviously (PLUG) Hire ReputationArmor.com to help you :).
A Few Simple Proactive/reactive Reputation Management Tips:
1. Register all your name/company name top level domain names. yourname.com, .net, .org, and others is you would like. Add unique content about your business to each one of them. Search engines like Google will pick them up and they will act as a place holder on Google so you can push them above a ROR link later or maybe ROR wont go above them at all.
2. Use or at least activate social media accounts for your name and business. Facebook, Twitter, Pintrest, and all the ones you know of. We have a list of about 50 we use for our clients.
3. Make sure you have a lot of citations for your business online like yellow pages, white pages, industry directories, Yelp, and other safer review sites.
There are so many ways to create a solid foundation of positive information online about your name and business, we could never share them all here in one sitting.
RipoffReport.com is a private company owned by Ed Magedson and Xcentric Ventures LLC based out of AZ. The address for the LLC is Xcentric Ventures, LLC Ripoff Report P.O. Box 310. Tempe, AZ 85280