Managing reputations online

DW: "Along the wall there on the outside is a big cutting for a company called Dahabshiil, which is the biggest money-transfer business in the Horn of Africa, born and developed in Somalia. They came to us and said, can you solve my Google problem. And their problem was, while they had a very ethical business, doing things the right way and transferring 90 per cent of money going in and out of Somalia and other war-torn countries, different markets in Africa, including money for aid agencies, for the UN etc — when you looked at Google, the vast majority of the searches on the first five pages were about a former employee who was holed up in Guantanamo Bay, who had left Dahabshiil long before he was arrested. No charges had been brought against him but nonetheless he was this former Dahabshiil employee and this was the story. It took us three months, but after three months we searched down the first 10 pages of Google — you couldn't find it within the first 10 pages."

This article published by from the Independent.co.uk but there is an other article which published by The Bureau of Investigative Journalism In London,

Online reputation management

A presentation shown during the meeting said the firm could ‘create and maintain third party blogs’ — blogs that appeared to be independent. These would contain positive content and popular key words that would rank highly in Google searches.

The pair also explained how the firm enables government videos and articles to move to the top of internet searches, while less favourable stories can move down the rankings.

‘The ambition obviously is to drown out that negative content and make sure that you have positive content out there online,’ Mr Wilson said.

The firm cited past examples of its work, including manipulating Google rankings for East African money transfer company Dahabshiil. Bell Pottinger executives said they had ensured references to a former Dahabshiil employee subsequently detained in Guantanamo Bay because of alleged links to al-Qaeda, disappeared from the first ten pages of a Google search for Dahabshiil.

thebureauinvestigates.com

Read here Dahabshiil Company threats to the Somali media