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Digital Marketing Freelancer in Kannur How Can Remove Negative Search Results About Business in Google? It can be frustrating to find negative information on Google. Imagine your brand being mentioned by someone on social media and they go onto Google to check out your brand. Instead of finding your website with your services and great reviews, they find a negative review, old complaint or article. Even if your business has improved, this could affect how people think about your brand. What Can I Do? The good news is there are ways to help manage these negative search results. Unfortunately, it won’t always be as simple as clicking a button. Depending on where the information came from, whether it’s true and if it goes against Googles policies, you may have to do some work. Why Are Negative Results Coming Up? Before you can try to remove any negative information you should understand why it is appearing. Google pulls together information from websites across the internet and shows the most relevant pages based on what you are searching for. Negative results can show up for a few reasons. For example: Weekly Social Media Content Schedule Someone has left a negative review about your business. Someone has left a complaint about your products/services. An article from a while ago has mentioned your brand in a negative way. A website has given incorrect or misleading information. There is a discussion on a public forum which is affecting your brand reputation. Not all negative results will be bad or incorrect. Sometimes it will be genuine feedback from a customer showing that your business can improve. You should understand the cause of the issue first. Identify Where the Negative Information is Coming From Search your brand name on Google.Look at the first few pages and identify what the negative results are. Look at what website the information is coming from, when it was published and what the content says. For example, if you run a clothes store and there is an old review about late delivery when people search for your store name. However, you have since improved your delivery processes.Whilst this isn’t necessarily untrue, it could be affecting potential customers.However, if there is untrue information about your business on a website, then you may have justification to ask for this to be changed. Once you know where the information is coming from, you can decide on the correct step to take. Request Removal from Google When the Content Violates Its Policies There are methods you can use to ask Google to remove specific content. However, this does not mean you can ask to have all negative reviews, complaints or articles removed.You may be able to ask to have the content removed if it breaches certain policies such as sensitive personal information, doxxing, non-consensual explicit images and more. For example, if there is a website that has published your personal contact information without consent, and it meets the criteria for removal from Google then you can ask for it to be removed. You can start here: Google’s content removal tool: https://support.google.com/websearch/troubleshooter/3111061 Give an explanation about the issue and the URLs required. Follow the steps. Note that this will only remove it from Google Search and may not remove it from the actual website. Contact the Website Owner to Remove Incorrect Information Sometimes contacting the website that has published the negative content online is the best option. Especially if the information is out of date, incorrect or lacks appropriate context. For example, if a blog has posted an article stating that your business is no longer trading. However, you are still trading and providing services. Rather than asking to have it removed from Google, contact the Website Owner and explain the situation. You can respectfully ask them to: Weekly Social Media Content Schedule Correct any incorrect information. Update outdated details. Remove any information that breaches their guidelines for publishing. Add your response or clarification to the article. If the Website Owner agrees to make changes to the page, eventually this may be reflected on Google. However, if they refuse and the content is truly untrue or defamatory then consider seeking legal advice. Deal With Negative Google Reviews Professionally One of the most common reputation issues will be negative reviews. A customer who has had a bad experience with your business can leave a review. As Google reviews show up on Google Search and Google Maps, this can cause prospective customers to see them before they go onto your website. However,If they have given genuine feedback then it is a good idea to reply professionally. You can respond with something like, “Thank you for sharing your feedback. We’re sorry your experience didn’t meet your expectations. We appreciate you bringing this to our attention and would like an opportunity to understand the issue better.” This shows prospective customers that you actually care about the feedback given. What If The Review Is Not Genuine? If someone leaves spam or fake engagement, or anything that goes against Googles review guidelines then you can report this in your Google Business Profile. You can learn more here: https://support.google.com/business/answer/4596773 Any reviews you report to Google for removal will be reviewed against Googles guidelines. Just because you don’t agree with the review doesn’t mean that Google will remove it. Use the Outdated Content Removal Tool Sometimes negative content will have been removed from a website but Google are still showing the outdated version. This is because Google aren’t always immediately updating their search results. Imagine a website has published an inaccurate article about your company. You contact them and they agree to remove the article. However, when someone searches for your brand name, the outdated page still appears on Google. In this case you could use Googles Outdated Content tool. You can enter the URL of the outdated page to request that Google updates their search results. You can find this here, https://search.google.com/search-console/remove-outdated-content Bear in mind that this tool is for Outdated Content and cannot be …