Wild West 2.0: How to Protect and Restore Your Online Reputation on the Untamed Social Frontier

87Google Gone Wild: The Digital Threat to Reputation

reward blogs with high search rankings when they publish new con-

tent, even though blogs are often rushed into publication before sto-

ries can be fully researched. This “blog bonus” often causes false

negative information to quickly rise to the top of a Google search.

Users who share false or misleading Web content are not always

malicious or nasty. Many users just want to share what appears to be

an interesting piece of news or gossip with their friends and ac-

quaintances. These users are simply too eager to share and do not

think to do their own investigation into the truth of the news. Other

users are bloggers who want to be among the first to write about a

story, lest they be “scooped” by other ...