Did Google Slap RipoffReport.com?

RipoffReport.com is the bane of honest internet marketers all over the world. It is a website that allows consumers (or anyone, really – it doesn’t verify if an actual customer is posting) to post “complaints” about anyone they wish.

The problem is that reports filed on RipoffReport.com are not verified, and so it has become a tool for scam artists and other types of problem customers to libel and defame honest businesses and their owners.

I’ve gotten a handful of RipoffReport.com complaints in my seven years in doing business online. All of them are completely groundless and posted in bad faith. For the most part, they’re posted by scam artist customers who make an unreasonable demand, such as for a refund without returning the product in question. When their bogus demand isn’t met, they retaliate with a Ripoff Report.

(Some customers will threaten to file a report if they don’t get what they want. What they don’t realize is that such a threat constitutes felony extortion in almost all states, and they can get in some really serious legal hot water for making such threats.)

Over the past couple of years, a cottage industry has surfaced of SEO companies who promise to make your Ripoff Reports disappear by “burying” them in search results with hundreds of new listings that make your business name, or whatever other phrase you choose, dominate the search results and push the Ripoff Reports so far down that no one will ever see them.

Well, I have some good news: It appears that Google has “slapped” RipoffReport.com’s page rank to such an extent that the negative publicity they cause may soon be a thing of the past.

I was pleasantly surprised one day when I noticed that the few Ripoff Reports that dishonest customers have filed against me seemed to have magically disappeared from Google search results. I investigated, and quickly learned that RipoffReport.com’s home page rake is down to PR 4, and the actual reports themselves are showing PR 0 or PR 1.

This means that Google has finally gotten wise to their game, and is turning off their gravy train.

This is great news for internet marketers who have been defamed by jerk customers who post bogus and untrue reports whenever they don’t get what they want. Now that Google has apparently learned the truth about RipoffReport.com and put them in their place, safeguarding your reputation has just become a lot easier.