Expert ORM Services to Remove Negative Results About UK-Based Financial Advisors

Our client, a well-known financial advisor in the UK, mainly working in Leicester, was falsely accused of corruption by competitors. Even though the court cleared him of all charges, negative articles about him stayed online, affecting his reputation. Worried about his online image, he reached out to us urgently for help in handling these articles.

The first step was to have a detailed Zoom meeting with the client. During the meeting, we reviewed all his documents and verified that he had been cleared in court. Once we confirmed his innocence, we explained the next steps in the process to him.

His competitors or defamers originally published 13 articles against him. Unfortunately, many press releases and news aggregator sites copied the content, spreading it further. As a result, more than 25 negative articles appeared on Google, making the situation even worse.

At Rank Wisdom, we use a unique three-step strategy called RSM to manage negative search results. The first step is removal, where we attempt to take down harmful content. If removal isn’t possible, we move to suppression, pushing negative results down in search rankings. Finally, we use mixing, blending positive or neutral content to balance the online narrative.

Remove Negative Results from Google

The removal process consists of three key steps, with page removal being the primary objective. Whenever possible, we prioritize removing the page from Google. However, if removal is not feasible, the next approach should be suppression.

To remove a page, follow these three steps:

1. Contact the Website’s Editorial Team – Request the removal directly from the site’s administrators or content editors.
2. Reach Out to the Hosting Provider – If the site refuses to remove the content, contact the hosting provider to escalate the request.
3. Engage with the Domain Registrar – As a last resort, contact the Domain Registrar to explore additional takedown options.

Contact the Website’s Editorial Team

We got this reply after 2 days without any follow-up email

We sent out 25 emails, and 7 responded positively, agreeing to remove the articles. We were pleased with the results.

Note: News aggregator sites usually do not respond to queries, making it difficult to receive a reply from them.

At this stage, 18 sites still had the articles live. Using our email tracker, we found that 12 out of the 25 sites opened our emails, and 7 of them cooperated by agreeing to remove the content. We then sent follow-up emails to the remaining 5 that had opened our messages but received no further response.

Reach Out to the Hosting Provider

Our next step was to contact the hosting providers. Using various tools, we identified the hosting providers of all 18 sites and reached out to them.

One major advantage of this approach is that hosting provider support is generally responsive, and we successfully connected with all 18. However, the main drawback is that hosting providers are unlikely to take down content from large press release sites.

Fortunately, one aggregator site with lower domain authority was instructed by its hosting provider to remove the article, and they complied with the request.

That was my first experience where an aggregator site agreed to remove an article upon a hosting provider’s request. Typically, aggregator sites are difficult to contact, and since most have low authority, suppression is usually the best approach. Before moving on to the next step, let me show you the domain authority of websites, including aggregators.

Engage with the Domain Registrar

Now, we were left with 17 sites. In our experience, directly contacting the site via email is the most effective approach for article removal, as it works for most clients. However, to achieve the best results, it’s crucial to utilize all three steps in the removal process.

In some cases, requesting removal through the hosting provider can also be highly effective. Interestingly, for digital marketers and online service providers, the success rate of link removal tends to be higher when using the hosting and DNS methods.

For checking domain registrars, the best free tool available is Who.is, which provides registrar details and other relevant information. Our primary focus is to identify the domain registrar, and in our case, most domains were registered with GoDaddy and Namecheap. However, for our client, this method did not yield successful results.

Suppress or Push Negative Results

With the first step, RSM, completed, our next objective was to push down the remaining 17 results in Google. Suppressing these results required a strategic approach. Aggregator sites were relatively easy to push down, but the real challenge came with articles and press releases.

Four high-authority sites (DA 80+) had published articles against our client. These sites were well-established brands with real traffic, making suppression significantly more difficult. Since they were among the most trusted platforms in the UK, they posed the biggest concern for our client.

Now came the press release phase. Rank Wisdom has strong editorial relationships and access to top press release sites, offering dedicated PR packages for clients. Leveraging this, we strategically published 25 articles to dominate the top two pages of search results.

Out of these, 20 articles focused on highlighting our client’s positive impact, such as how their firm helped people in Leicester with financial issues. These articles were backed by real data and written by the client’s own writing team, as per their preference, although Rank Wisdom also has an in-house team of professional writers.

The remaining 5 articles were dedicated to clarifying and countering the false claims made in previous reports. Interestingly, 7 out of the 20 positive articles were published on the same sites that had originally published negative content against our client, turning those platforms into tools for reputation repair.

We didn’t use any URL or article indexers, as high-authority sites naturally get indexed quickly. Within just 20 hours, all our published articles were indexed by Google.

After 48 hours, we successfully suppressed the top three negative results, pushing aggregator sites down to the fourth page. The top three search results were now positive articles, while the fifth result remained negative, followed by six more positive articles. Within six days, even the fifth negative article was pushed to the second page.

This was a significant achievement, and our client was highly satisfied with the results.