Audit Google Results Before Hiring ORM Help
Before you pay anyone to fix your online reputation, spend thirty minutes finding out exactly what needs fixing. A self-audit tells you how big the problem is, which results matter most, and whether you need professional help at all. It also gives you what you need to judge any provider's quote.
Why audit your own results first?
Without an audit you are buying blind. You cannot tell whether a quote is fair, whether a promised result is realistic, or whether a provider is working on the results that actually hurt you. With one, you walk into every conversation knowing which URLs matter and what you expect done with each.
How do you search yourself the right way?
- Use a private or incognito window and sign out of Google, so your own history does not shape the results.
- Search your full name in quotation marks, then without them.
- Add your city, your employer, your job title and any former or maiden names.
- Check the Images, News and Videos tabs as well as the main results.
- Go through the first three pages. Most searchers stop at page one, but results on pages two and three can move up.
- Repeat on a phone. Mobile results sometimes differ from desktop.
How do you score what you find?
Put every result in a simple spreadsheet with its URL, its position and a score:
- Harmful. Mugshots, arrest or court records, negative news, complaint-site posts, fake or unfair reviews.
- Exposing. Your home address, phone number, relatives or other personal details.
- Outdated or wrong. Old jobs, stale information, or results about someone else with your name.
- Neutral. Harmless directory listings and mentions.
- Positive. Your profiles, your published work, good press.
Then weight each harmful result by where it ranks. A bad result in the top five matters much more than one on page three.
What can be removed, and what can only be suppressed?
Often removable: Mugshot and arrest-record pages, especially after charges are dropped or records are expunged; people-search listings, since most people-search sites offer opt-outs; your contact details in Google results, through Google's "Results about you" tool; content that breaks a platform's rules; and copyrighted material posted without permission.
Sometimes removable: Fake or unfair reviews that break a review site's policies, and news articles, where outcomes depend on the publisher and what has changed since publication.
Usually suppress-only: Accurate news coverage and court records a publisher will not change. The realistic approach here is to push accurate, positive results above them.
Which audit results mean you need professional help?
- Harmful results in the top five for your name.
- The same content copied across many sites.
- Removal requests you've already sent that were ignored or refused.
- Content tied to a job search, a business or a legal matter where timing matters.
- Results you can't identify or that seem to be growing.
If your audit turns up only a few people-search listings, you can likely handle those yourself with opt-out forms.
How do you vet an ORM provider?
- Ask for a URL-by-URL plan. A good provider tells you, for each result from your audit, whether it is removal or suppression and how they would do it.
- Be wary of guarantees. Nobody controls Google. Promises of guaranteed removal from any site, or permanent results, are a warning sign.
- Ask about methods. Some firms file fake copyright notices or fake court orders. These can be traced in public databases such as Lumen and can make your situation worse.
- Get a written scope and price. Know what you pay for, what counts as done, and what happens if a result comes back.
- Check who you're dealing with. A real business name, a physical address and a person you can talk to.
Where Online Reputation Repair helps
If your audit turned up results you want gone, bring it to a free, confidential lookup. We'll go through it with you URL by URL, tell you plainly what can be removed and what would need suppression, and give you a written scope and price before any work starts. See our pricing guide for typical costs.
