Mashable is a great blog that often covers issues of importance to the reputation risk management industry. The article, linked below, gives three tips for managing your online reputation. The excerpted is part of number two:

Although it’s a good idea to ask people to remove embarrassing content about you, in the majority of cases the best course is to make sure that you are the first and best source of information about yourself appearing on Google and other major search engines. “Crowding out,” or pushing that embarrassing party photo down in the search rank can be achieved over time. This approach is best combined with an ethos of developing a thicker skin.

This is solid advice, and there’s more to be found in the article.

http://mashable.com/2010/04/08/managing-online-reputation/

The importance of social networking sites to personal reputation management cannot be emphasized enough. These sites drive traffic and command top spots in search engine results. More importantly, they often have to do with you, yes you. This means they are immediately important to virtually everyone, in both good and bad ways. On the negative side, when someone google’s your name, they are quite likely to find your facebook wall, twitter feed, and Blogspot profile–all of which might contain information you don’t want prospective employers seeing. Similarly, businesses have to be careful to control their branding online.

Facebook provides a platform for businesses to build pages showcasing their products and services. LinkedIn has become a massive talent pond that can’t be ignored if an organisation is serious about hunting for talent. Twitter with its flagship bird is enabling people globally to exchange tweets about what is happening around them. YouTube continues to show videos of events happening around our globe. Organisations have an opportunity to harness such platforms to communicate with their targeted audience. The strategy is to have a mix of talent sourcing and branding platforms suitable for each identified talent market.

This is a tall order, of course, and much easier to say than to do. Still, this statement is as true as they come in regards to the power of social media.

http://www.bizcommunity.com/Article/410/22/46570.html

Unvarnished is a new website that builds on an old idea. Unvarnished is to individuals what Yelp is to businesses–which is to say, it allows strangers to review individuals. There is a question raging over the website, though, about whether it will simply become an instrument for malcontents, or serve a genuine purpose.

Critics say there is little to prevent the Web site’s conversation from devolving into the hate fests found on so many sites populated with anonymous comments. But others say the honesty on Unvarnished might not just be a breath of fresh air but a potentially helpful resource for recruiters looking to fill jobs.

Frankly, I think it is likely that the website will devolve into the anarchy of the Internet. Time and experience has proven that anonymity on the Internet just leads to bad behavior by commenters. As a result, the website could have a major effect on search engine reputation management.

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/people-ratings-site-unvarnished-unleashes-controversy/story?id=10267223