Because online reputation is important for every business, more and more companies are advertising reputation management services. They claim that they can improve your standing on the internet by removing negative reviews from blogs, forums and review sites. But is this true?

Unfortunately, it is not. All of these sites are protected by free speech laws and they are not obligated to delete any opinion or review, even if it is untrue. That's right! Even if a review is a pack of lies that was designed to disparage your business, a site does not have to take it down.

The only problem is that specious reviews have become ever more common these days. Often, they are created by nefarious competitors who refuse to play fair. They believe that by belittling your business they can attract more customers for themselves.

What can you do? As we said, nine times out of ten a reputation management firm will not be able to make a website remove a negative review. Of course, that doesn't mean that they are powerless or that they cannot improve your reputation. After all, they are professionals and they have many tricks up their sleeves.

One of the most reliable techniques is to bury the negative review under a virtual mountain of positive reviews. It really is quite simple. The company will post dozens of laudatory reviews about your company. These reviews will then replace the negative ones and push them further on down the list. So, when a potential customer performs a web search, all he will find are the positive reviews.