Brand Search Results- how do you make sure spammy links don't hurt your brand

[SEMEnthusiast]

We are seeing a spammer start ranking #4 for our branded search result on google. This could potentially be hurting our brand. Any suggestions that have worked for you recently? For more context we already have:

• Create Social profiles (Linkedin, G+, FB etc) which are engaged and frequently updated
• Analyzed Domain Authority, Links and recency of the spammy article. The domain and the page authority seems weak, and the spammy article is dated Dec of last year
• Looked at various posts on http://moz.com/community/q/reputation-management.

Thanks in advance!

[SEMEnthusiast]

Thanks, the spammy link has been ranking for about 2 months now. We have tried reporting to Google- but haven't seen them take down or demote the link..

[Chris.Menke]

How long has that site been ranking for your brand and how long have you been at the reputation management?  If your brand's site has some authority and it is linking out to 10 of your brand's well established social profiles and you have at least a couple of content pieces focused on your brand name published somewhere online, you should be able to push a weak resource down off of page 1 in a relatively short amount of time.

[MoosaHemani]

Yes, Just wanted to clear that part...:)

[LesleyPaone]

Notice my first sentence "Depending on how they are using the brand name..."  my whole post hangs on that.

[MoosaHemani]

Lesley, I believe DMCA file is good when the website that ranking for their brand name is directly hurting their brand name but this is not really a good idea if the website is just ranking against their key phrase and they think that it will hurt their brand in any way!

What I really believe is that use your social profiles more powerfully and better build some links that points to those social profiles. Also, it is a good idea to get the authorship of some good blog within your niche and that Author link can easily acquire good ranking against your brand name.

I personally advice people to have these social profiles up and running in order to hack the 1^st page of Google against your brand name! http://www.setalks.com/control-1st-page-of-google/

Hope this helps!

[LesleyPaone]

Depending on how they are using the brand name, it might be a legal matter. It could be something easy enough as filing a DMCA notice with their hosting company or sending them a cease and desist notice. They aren't immediate solutions, but they will solve the problem.