Companies that cannot afford the expenses required to push themselves up in search engines rankings are increasingly resorting to more underhanded methods to knock down the image and reputation of their more well-funded competitors. These methods include smear campaigns, the spreading of false rumors, misleading information, and anything else that may damage a company’s reputation to the point where it puts doubt in the minds of consumers considering the purchase of that company’s products and services. A well run campaign will continue to add negative commentary over time to make it appear that there is some sort of growing movement against the targeted company. The commentary can be posted on blogs, forums, in articles, or any place else where it can be seen by consumers on the internet. Search engine optimization of the negative content can draw more viewers to it and increase its “believability†regardless of it being poorly written or its inaccuracies. The damage done, those consumers are then steered toward the sponsors of the negative content.
Surely it's more cost effective to hire an SEO to improve the results of ones own website instead of hiring them to harrass thousands of competitors. In my experience the only people that worry about online reputation management is the owner when it's pointed out to him by the company looking for a $$$ to fix a non-issue.