- Start by searching your own name and business. You cannot manage what you have not seen.
- Claim every profile you can, and keep them accurate.
- Reply to reviews. It is free and many readers judge you by how you reply.
- Ask real customers for reviews. Never buy, write or trade them.
- Hand hard cases to a firm: news articles, defamation, review policy disputes, and fast moving crises.
In this guide
Top pick for online reputation management in 2026: Reputation Resolutions
Scored 93 out of 100 on our five-criteria methodology, the highest of any firm we rank for reputation management. Results-based services for repairing, improving and protecting online reputations on Google and AI, and payment is only required after results are achieved. A+ BBB Accredited, in business since 2013.
What Online Reputation Management Is
Online reputation management, or ORM, is work that shapes what people find and believe when they search a name. It has three parts: watch, respond and build.
Watching means knowing what is out there. Responding means answering reviews and complaints. Building means publishing accurate, useful pages so search has good material to show.
ORM is not about hiding the truth or inventing praise. It is about making sure the true, current picture is easy to find. When a firm sells anything else, be careful.
Seven Best Practices a Business Can Run Itself
These cost little and prevent most problems. Do them before you have a crisis.
Search yourself every month
Search your business name, your own name and your main product in a private window. Note what appears on the first two pages.
Claim your profiles
Claim and complete your Google Business Profile, your social profiles and the listings customers use. Keep hours, address and descriptions correct.
Set alerts
Create alerts for your business name and key people. Check review sites weekly.
Answer reviews
Reply to praise and to complaints. Be brief, polite and specific. Move heated cases offline.
Ask real customers for reviews
Send a general request after a good experience, to everyone, without steering. Do not offer money or gifts for a particular opinion.
Publish accurate pages
A clear about page, leadership bios, a press page and answers to common questions. Search likes pages that help.
Fix the cause of recurring complaints
If the same problem shows up three times, it is a business problem, not a reputation problem.
The best defense is a steady record of doing right by customers. Content cannot fully cover for operations that disappoint people.
Pick tools for the watching step with the guide to the best reputation monitoring tools.
Ready to Fix What People See When They Search You?
Talk to a specialist at Reputation Resolutions, the top-scored firm on this list. You get a straight answer on what can be removed, what can be pushed down, and what it will take. Every service, from repairing to improving to protecting your reputation, is results-based and agreed in writing.
How to Reply to Reviews
A good reply is short, calm and for the next reader, not only the reviewer.
| Situation | Do | Do not |
|---|---|---|
| A fair complaint | Thank them, name the fix and offer a contact | Make excuses or argue |
| An unfair complaint that follows the platform rules | State your side briefly and politely | Accuse the reviewer of lying |
| A review that breaks platform policy | Report it with the policy and evidence | Threaten the reviewer |
| Praise | Thank them by name or first name | Copy and paste the same line every time |
| A review from someone who was never a customer | Report it as a conflict with the policy | Reply with private details about them |
Remember that you are talking to every future reader. A calm answer to a harsh review often earns more trust than a perfect record.
Reviews that break a platform rule are a different job, scored in the best Google review removal services.
Restaurant owners can read how to reply and when to call a firm in the list of the best reputation management for restaurants.
What to Hand to a Firm
Some problems are slow, technical or tied to a platform process. Those are worth paying for, if the firm is honest about limits.
Do it yourself
- Monthly searches and alerts
- Profile claims and updates
- Replying to reviews
- Asking real customers for reviews
- Publishing accurate pages
- Fixing recurring complaints
Hand to a firm
- A damaging news article that keeps ranking
- Content that breaks platform policy and needs a formal case
- A fast moving online crisis
- Search results for a person that you cannot move
- Ongoing monitoring across many sites
- AI answers that repeat outdated facts
Reputation Resolutions offers reputation repair services with results-based work for repairing, improving and protecting online reputations, agreed in writing. It is A+ BBB Accredited, has been in business since 2013 and has clients in 40+ countries. See how it scores on our main list.
Before you hire anyone, read 12 questions to ask any reputation management firm.
The agencies that take that work are scored in the best business reputation management agencies.
Partners deciding what to hand over can start with the best reputation management for law firms.
What No Firm Can Promise
Honest firms pair what they can do with what nobody can. If a firm cannot, step back.
- Force a platform to remove content that follows its rules
- Make a true story disappear
- Control the exact position of a page in search
- Control what an AI tool writes
- Lock in a result before looking at the case
- Hide a firm's own interests when it also runs a ranking site
Our guide to how best-of lists are made shows how to check who stands behind a ranking.
A Simple Monthly Routine
Reputation work is a habit. Thirty minutes a month beats a panic once a year.
- Search the business name, the owner and the top product
- Check Google, Yelp and the main industry review site
- Reply to anything new
- Screenshot anything that looks wrong, with date and address
- Update profiles and the about page if anything has changed
- Note recurring complaints and pass them to whoever can fix them
- If something spreads fast, read our guide on crisis communication best practices
Practices should add HIPAA reply rules to the routine, covered in the best reputation management for doctors and healthcare.
Add a monthly prompt check to this routine, and read how AI reputation management works on the sources behind an answer.
Anthony Will
Founder and CEO, Reputation Resolutions
Anthony Will founded Reputation Resolutions, the publisher of this site, and has worked in online reputation management since 2013. He reviews the methodology and every scoring change.