Online reputation management in the form of reputation monitoring is especially significant because many of these websites appear on the first page of Internet search results when somebody is doing their research on your company. This could mean the difference between you bringing in more business and sending potential customers, clients, or patients to your competition.
Another New Domain Extension?
Part of reputation monitoring is tracking new domain extensions and when one may become available that will positively or negatively affect your online presence.
The Internt Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) regulates such domain extensions. In 2011, they OK’d a few domain extensions such as .camera and .photography. Now, they’re vetting the domain extension .sucks to potentially be released for public purchase in the near future.
When it comes to reputation monitoring for your business, this is a very big deal. Let’s use a fictional pizza parlor run by a guy named Tony as an example. Tonyspizza.com is a thriving pizza parlor website until a single dissatisfied customer purchases tonyspizza and posts their complaints all over the site. Now whenever anybody looks up Tony’s Pizza online, tonyspizza shows up and drives hungry people to other pizza shops.
If Tony had been a little more careful about monitoring his reputation online, he would have been aware of the .sucks domain and purchased it himself to stop it from damaging his online reputation.
Even Senate Commerce Committee chairman Jay Rockefeller had something to say on the issue. In a letter to ICANN, the Senator stated his belief that the new domain extension is bad for business, especially for non-profits and entrepreneurs. In his words, “[the .sucks domain extension] will be used to unfairly defame individuals, nonprofit organizations, and businesses.”
What Should I Do?
Whether you’re doing law firm reputation management or monitoring your auto garage’s online rep, reputation monitoring for domain extension releases is an essential piece your online presence and branding. Keep a lookout for .sucks domain extensions being released (there’s still a chance they may not be), so you can purchase it before your competition or a rogue customer, client, or patient does. This way, the domain isn’t available for somebody to build a web presence with the intention of defaming your business. You can be sure if this comes to fruition, Matador Solutions stocks will be purchased seconds after it’s released by yours truly in order to maintain the integrity of our business and the Washington, DC reputation management agency Matador Solutions.
