Three negative results on page one
Our assessment found three damaging articles on the first page, featured on high-authority sites such as Yahoo Sports, Bleacher Report, and several news outlets.
Reputation Management
Here's How We Pushed a Famous Athlete's Negative Press Off Page One
01 — The Problem
Negative coverage across every branded search
A popular athlete approached our team for assistance with negative articles published about them. These articles appeared prominently in search results for their name and their name combined with their sports team. To effectively manage this issue, we treated each search query as a separate campaign, focusing on pushing down the negative articles.
Multiple branded queries affected
The coverage ranked for their name and for their name combined with their sports team, so each query had to be treated as its own campaign.
Heavily linked and trafficked
Those articles held their positions on the strength of real organic traffic and links — which is why this campaign ran twelve months rather than eight.
02 — The Solution
Building assets that outrank the coverage
We began the campaign by documenting the current rankings for the negative articles to establish a benchmark. Next, we identified any positive content ranking below these negative articles that had the potential to outrank them. By cataloging existing positive content, we determined the number of new pieces needed to push the negative articles off the first page. Here's what we did:
Earned Press
- Launched an outreach campaign to high-authority news sites, resulting in 8 new positive pieces about our client.
- Created a backlink and traffic campaign for existing positive content. Increased links and traffic signalled to Google that this content was favoured over the negative articles.
Owned Assets
- Optimized the athlete's website and social media profiles to ensure a clear and consistent message across all platforms, aligning all new content with that message.
- Acquired several fan page websites using the athlete's name in the domain, making them easier to rank on Google. These sites linked to the athlete's main website, social media profiles, and positive press.
The Scholarship Campaign
- Acquired several scholarship sites in the athlete's name, allowing them to offer a $1,000 or larger scholarship to the student of their choosing.
- Submitted the sites to all of the top colleges, quickly earning high-quality .edu links that powered them onto the first page of Google.
- Linked the athlete's site, socials, and positive press from those pages to lift all of them at the same time.
Technical Signals
- Added schema markup to the client's official website, connecting their site, social media accounts, and positive press.
- Began a link building and traffic campaign to all the new assets we created, and to the athlete's social media profiles.
Additional strategies were also implemented, but some remain proprietary.
03 — The Outcome
Page one cleared in twelve months
Over the course of twelve months, we successfully pushed all negative articles off the first page of Google. The campaign required extended effort due to the high organic traffic and links that kept these negative articles prominent.
Where the Coverage Sits Now
- The articles have dropped to lower pages where they receive minimal clicks and links, ensuring they continue to drop in relevance.
Negative Links Cleared
- 3 negative links removed from page 1.
- 3 negative links removed from page 2.
- 2 negative links removed from page 3.
The athlete's search results are now dominated by positive and accurate content that truly reflects their personal brand. This transformation not only improved their online presence and restored their reputation but also provides a more authentic representation to anyone searching for them on Google.
Before After 
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