If you are reading this article, then chances are that you have some form of presence online and around the internet. With the modern development of search technology, it has become exponentially easier to locate and obtain information on any given person – including yourself. Keeping tabs on your online reputation may not only be a matter of vanity, but also a matter of life and death for many who rely on the web for income or real life reputation. We will show you several ways in which you can keep tabs on your online presence and make sure your reputation is not being destroyed by others.

Set Up RSS Feeds

Google offers the ability to receive custom RSS feeds delivered straight to your inbox. You can use this feature to subscribe to any search or news updates that pertain to yourself, your company or your website. There is also another tool, MonitorThis, which utilizes the same aspects as Google but does so for over 20 different search engines. These updates can be delivered daily, weekly or monthly, depending on the needs of the user. Whenever a new update is posted in regards to your reputation, be in the know by using these RSS feeds and keep ahead of the negativity and complaints.

Use TweetDeck

TweetDeck is a useful tool that can be used to keep tabs on what others are saying about you on Twitter. Not only can this be used to monitor what anybody on the social networking giant is saying about you or your company, it can also be used to determine what complaints and problems people may be having with your website, products or services. This information can then be used to correct existing problems and make sure that your ventures are not receiving negative feedback, which can be read by countless others. Simply input your search queries into TweetDeck and it will retrieve the latest mentions of the topic.

Confront Complaints

It is not advised to be aggressive toward those who have found your services, products or website to be less than desirable, but confronting the individuals responsible for the comments can have great effect (if necessary, you can use Pingler’s Anonymous Email Sender tool to contact the individual in question). Many times, problems can be addressed with the individual and they may even take the complaint down at your request. If the complaint is more personal in nature, attempt to negotiate a “truce” but also keep the avenues open for further action if the material is defaming your character or libelous.

Integrate Your Projects

If you have a Google account, you can integrate many posts, pages and blogs into the account and they will show up as personal results in any given search an individual makes that relates to the content in question. You can easily keep tabs on this from your control panel and this also gives your content higher priority in search engines when people search your name. If you have others out there talking bad about you, this is one tactic that can help shift their complaints further down the page and boost your best work to the top of your search results.