While that article that was written about you was true at that time, you have changed your perspective after being educated on the topic and overall becoming a better person. But those articles are likely not going to be taken down, so what’s the next step? There is something called “reputation management” online and this can influence how you are perceived on the net and what information is available about you. 

Remember that posting personal information online for everyone to see is a surefire way to give people information to be used against you. While that controversial article you are going to post may seem appropriate at the time, think about how it will affect your life and career down the line. An example of this is how diplomats can be denied their letter of credence because of an article or statement they made against the receiving country. Search engines make finding everything online easy, so be sure to always think twice before posting anything online. 

If an article about you that you particularly dislike has already been published online, the next step is to attempt to remove it where it appears. Bear in mind that Google does not own the internet, nor the sites that people post things on, it merely brings up things available using the search engine function. Even if Google does not display the site it appears on, people can still access the site through the direct link if they have it saved, or through other search engines or social media networks. Basically speaking, you need to remove the piece from its original site. 

To remove the content from a site, you need to contact the website’s webmaster and ask them to remove the piece being questioned. Once this is done, the removal can be expedited by using a URL removal tool to assist in making it disappear from Google. If the site is run by you, then you can just take down the article or post no problem, then use the URL removal tool all the same. 

If you are unable to get in touch with the webmaster of a site, or if they downright refuse to remove the content piece, the next step would be to try and slowly push information down. This can be viewed as a kind of reverse-SEO process that aims to produce quality, positive content that aims to drown out the negative articles posted about you. Reducing the visibility of the posts made is doable over time, albeit slowly. 

Conclusion

Having a digital footprint that explicitly shows you as the culprit or person of interest because of some accidental statement you made that blew out of proportion is not a nice experience. This can be extremely detrimental to your career and how people view you. You will want your reputation kept clean at all costs, so if you have difficulties removing these articles or posts about you, seek help from a company that specializes in this. 

At Content Removal, we assist with reputation management online through processing removal applications to relevant sites, hosts, and ISPs that hold bad things about your image. We know how bad negative and harmful content is to people and businesses, which is why we vowed to help out those affected by offering assistance in the fields of removing information online.