Google Autocomplete Corrected By Affordable Reputation Management

Online, June 6, 2013 (Newswire.com) - Affordable Reputation Management is able to change Google's automatic suggestions that appear in the search box about you or your business, it was announced today.

Google's "autocomplete" is what proposes suggestions to you when you perform a search. When you begin typing a query at google.com, you immediately begin seeing a list of several suggestions that "complete" your search. This is what the search engine giant refers to as "autocomplete". It is meant to save users time by suggesting popular searches tha might be relevant to what you are looking for.

The problem is that for some people - and business owners - those automatic suggestions can be damaging.

For example, an individual might be shocked to see Google suggest "arrested" after they type their name in the search box. A restaurant owner might see, "food poisoning" or "health department" after their restaurant name. This can lead users right to negative information about you or your business.

Affordable Reputation Management President Mike Munter had this to say:

"Usually there is truth to what Google suggests in its autocomplete. But what we find in many cases is that the suggestion could be years old, or perhaps the situation has been handled and now the person or business owner just wants to move on. Sometimes the suggestions are flat out false."

Munter added that, "For whatever reason, it's human nature to follow a scandal or "juicy story". So, if someone sees negative information about you or your business - even if this was not their original intention - they might click on the autocomplete option purely out of interest - thus exacerbating the problem."

Companies and individuals can check what Google is suggesting about them by entering their name or company name into the search box. Typicall, 4 - 10 autcomplete suggestions will appear, offering users a chance to quickly navigate to the things that people search for the most.

When you see something you don't like, Munter's Affordable Reputation Management firm can change it.

"Our team performs manual searches on a regular basis, so that over time, Google recognizes their are other searches being made about you or your business online. We also use proxies to inform Google that these searches are coming from different computers in different parts of the world."

Munter reports that the first new suggestions can be seen within 3-6 weeks, but he added that it can take several months or a year or more to completely update the autcmatic suggestions: "It just takes time. We perform the searches and then have to wait for Google's algorithm to recognize and compile the data. Since their is nothing stated publicly from Google about their timeline, we can only give clients an approximation of how long it might take, based on our experience and the severity of the problem."

For more information on Google autocomplete, visit: http://affordablereputationmanagement.blogspot.com/p/managing-googles-suggestions-about-you.html