If you’ve ever set up Google Adwords or any other PPC ad, you already know the concept of negative keywords. Certain user requests indicate interest in the product. The list of negative keywords are queries without the user’s interest in the proposal, on which advertising is disabled.
Negative keywords in online reputation risk management
In ORM, negative keywords become unwanted user queries about the brand or product, as well as autocomplete offered by the search.
Auto fillings entail additional risks, as they can direct the user to inappropriate content and show the worst content that exists about the brand on the network.
As soon as a negative keyword begins to be associated with a brand, it directs traffic to pages with negative content, and this in turn gives unwanted information more publicity.
What are negative urls?
Negative URLs are pages in search results that contain information that is dangerous for the brand’s reputation, which Google regards as reliable and trustworthy and therefore shows it in the top results for more users.
An example of a negative URL is a site created by a dishonest competitor in order to destroy the reputation of your brand. Or a news article, or press release about a specific brand scandal.
Negative addresses are often ranked at fairly high positions by negative keywords. And that prominence of such pages leads, in turn, to a rise in position in the search results and consolidation on the first page of issuance even for brand requests.
ORM must consider negative keywords and URLs
The goal of ORM is to create a positive reputation: positive associations, positive search queries, and positive new content.
To make the campaign effective, efforts are directed to blocking anything negative about the brand and replacing it with positive content. That is why it is important to keep track of all negative keywords and negative URLs in order to be able to respond in a timely and comprehensive manner.
ORM experts create matrices of positive and negative queries associated with the brand. Then, efforts are directed to increase traffic to positive new content.
Companies that have already encountered negative content should work in two directions: create new positive content and respond to negative URLs in a timely manner. Even companies that only consider ORM as a preventative measure to protect their reputation must consider the risks posed by negative URLs.