This is now a common scenario that companies and professionals have to contend with in the online world.

A simple search of his name or company would return on the first page of the search results totally defaming entries about his profession or products that have no real basis and most of which were simply based on hearsay. The culprit -- anonymous comments on blogs or forums by an unknown poster or blogger. The results -- millions of dollars lost from potential investors and a heavily soiled reputation to amend.  

The potential for spreading such lies that could damage anyone’s online reputation is now easier that ever and the impact and spread faster and farther reaching. Blogs, MySpace, Facebook, YouTube and other social networks make in convenient for these lies to spread in seconds, reaching the farthest corners of the globe with an Internet connection. A single post by an anonymous culprit - and your worst nightmares spreads across cyberspace.

That’s the main problem with defending your online reputation. You cannot simply sue anyone if you’re not sure they are the culprit. You cannot sue the webmasters either for they were made immune by the Communications Decency Act of 1996 as long as the malicious content was posted by a third party. Judges however, can compel the webmasters to reveal the culprit’s identity of considerable harm was already made on your behalf.

However, the process described above is long, drawn-out, and quite expensive to undertake, not to mention the potential of going around in circles trying to track down the culprit. The course to take for reputation management is to replace the first three pages of search engine results with positive content that could push out all the negative materials out of contention. Studies have shown that only 30 percent of searchers go beyond the first page, with less than 8 percent reading beyond page three.

This can narrow down the target area for your defense by dominating these search engine results related to your name or the name of your company, including certain keywords that are identified with you, your work or your company. You may also need the help of reputable internet reputation management companies to help you with this work as you cannot do all this on your own.