Unvarnished.com – The New Reputation Management Nightmare?
A news article in today’s Los Angeles Times reports on a new reputation management nightmare: Unvarnished.com. I am skeptical, however. As an experienced Online Reputation Management professional, I deal with this subject a lot. And while this new site is interesting, it is a far cry from the reputation management nightmares that currently exist. That is, “review” sites like Ripoffreport.com and Scam.com.
On both aforementioned sites, users can freely and anonymously post unfounded and unreviewed negative attacks on any person or company without having to provide any evidence of wrongdoing. As such, these sites have become breeding grounds for sniper attacks from competitors, disgruntled employees and customers who would rather post a negative comment than try to resolve their issues with the company directly. Granted, quite a few of these complaints are for good reason, but with such lax rules on who can complain and for what reason, it can get very difficult to discern which complaints are real and which are not. There’s no accountability.
On Unvarnished.com, however, a user can only access the site via their Facebook account. This step helps verify who is making a complaint and, as such, bringing user accountability to the table. According to the LA Times article, you also have to be invited by a current user to participate. These two steps alone provide Unvarnished.com with much-needed integrity, making it a friend within the world of online reputation, not a nightmare.
Even if it was a nightmare though, Unvarnished.com still wouldn’t be a big threat to anyone, at least not for the foreseeable future. This is because the site does not rank! The number one online reputation management issue is when negative listings are out ranking positive listings, particularly on the first page of search engine results. At this point in time, though, Unvarnished.com isn’t outranking anyone.
