As I wrote earlier, ripoffreport.com is finally getting some serious push-back from people in the reputation management / SEO industry (Rand, Chris, Andy).

Now SEOmoz have kicked this into over-drive with their heavyweight legal mind, Sarah L. Bird Esq. contributing a piece on the anatomy of a ripoffreport lawsuit.

In order to help spread the word far and wide, we have created a set of badges that you can include in blog posts or on your website to show your support for the campaign to have Google do something about these shake-downs.

We have included links back to this page to explain what it’s all about and so people can get their own badges - we aren’t in this campaign for SEO benefit, so feel free to link instead to your own page explaining the situation (note that the badges are CC licensed - see below - so you can do with them as you wish), or to make the links nofollow.

You are welcome to include them using the code below:

<a href="http://www.distilled.co.uk/blog/reputation/join-in-and-do-your-bit-to-get-rid-of-ripoffreport-from-the-serps/"><img src="http://www.distilled.co.uk/distilled/images/ror-large-fire.jpg" width="253" height="104" alt="I support the campaign to get RoR out of Google" /></a>

<a href="http://www.distilled.co.uk/blog/reputation/join-in-and-do-your-bit-to-get-rid-of-ripoffreport-from-the-serps/"><img src="http://www.distilled.co.uk/distilled/images/ror-small-fire.jpg" width="73" height="23" alt="I thumbs-down RoR" /></a>

The idea is that the large one is designed to go on blog posts about the subject and the small badge is to place in a blog sidebar for example.

This work is licenced under a Creative Commons Licence. This means you can copy the images, upload them yourselves and use your own versions if you prefer not to link to us.

The badges are the work of our graphic designer, Leonie Wharton, and I’m sure she’d like a shout out if you do use our badges

I just wanted to end with a note about motives:

• My company is not (yet!) listed in ripoffreport
• I have nothing to gain from them being removed from the search engine results pages
• In fact, companies approach us asking us to carry out reputation management when they get listed in ripoffreport - we would get fewer of these enquiries were ripoffreport to be discredited in the search engines

I have said before that I am a huge fan of the power of the internet to spread consumer reports and warnings. I believe, however, that the approach of ripoffreport is far more like a shake-down than an activity in raising consumer awareness. I guess what I’m saying is that with great power comes great responsibility.

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