Online reputation management

Online reputation management (ORM) is the ongoing care of the picture people get of a company, brand or person online: in search results, reviews, media coverage, social networks and now also in the answers of AI assistants. It comes down to three tasks: monitoring what is said about you, responding well and making sure that accurate, positive content about you is easy to find.

Reputation in AI answers: what we measure

Ask ChatGPT or Google's AI Overviews about a provider and you get an answer built from other people's texts: review platforms, comparison articles and media reports. We see this pattern in our own tracking. Since 23 October 2026 we have run a fixed set of 25 German-language prompts weekly through ChatGPT and through AI Overviews and AI Mode in Google, using Ahrefs Brand Radar. On 6 November 2026 Linkbroker was named for all 6 prompts about our brand, but for only 5 of 13 general purchase prompts in at least one engine. The set is small, but the message is clear: when people ask about you by name, your own site carries the answer, and when they ask which provider to choose, what others write about you decides.

The same tool shows which review platforms AI answers in Germany rely on: Trustpilot is cited far more often than any other, with OMR Reviews, Capterra, G2 and ProvenExpert behind it (as of 9 November 2026; a ranking, not exact shares). Which outlets carry that weight differs by market and industry. For many publishers in our marketplace we therefore show our AI Score, which tells you how often the outlet is cited in answers from ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Copilot and Google AI Overviews.

The four parts of online reputation management

1. Monitor: set up alerts for your company and brand names, check your Google Business Profile and the review platforms that matter in your industry, and search your name together with words such as "reviews" or "complaints". Add an AI check: ask ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini the same questions about your brand every month and record the answers. A single answer is a snapshot, only a series over months shows a trend.
2. Respond: answer reviews and comments in a friendly, factual and timely way, praise as well as criticism. With criticism, acknowledge the point first, then state the facts and offer the next step, and settle details in direct contact. Other readers judge you by how you handle problems.
3. Shape: make sure there is good, verifiable content about you: a clear about page with team and facts, a complete business profile, the same company details everywhere and the same short description of your brand. Voices from outside matter at least as much, such as expert articles, interviews and mentions in media and comparisons. Over time this is what builds a brand, as described under brand building.
4. Be prepared: decide in advance who answers, who decides and how fast. Check the facts before you react and keep one line across all channels. Reviews that break a platform's rules can be reported there.

Reviews: collect them honestly, answer them well

For most companies, reviews are the most visible part of their reputation. Ask every customer for a review, not just the happy ones, and offer nothing in return. Google removes fake engagement, including paid reviews, under its Maps user contributed content policy, and fake or paid-for reviews are banned under consumer protection law in the US, the UK and the EU. Positive reviews and helpful replies also help a business stand out in Google's local results. A steady flow of honest reviews, answered personally, does more for trust than any star average.

What should appear when people search your name

Search your company name on Google and look at the first page. Ideally you see your website, your business profile, your profiles on the platforms that count in your industry and coverage about you. If something unsuitable ranks there, the lasting fix is to build more good, relevant content that deserves those positions, which is classic SEO for your own name. No one can promise that a particular result drops out of sight, but strong pages about you make an outdated or unfair one much less prominent.

How to improve what AI assistants say about your brand

• Audit the answers: run the questions your customers ask, including comparisons and "best provider for" prompts, and note where answers are wrong, outdated or leave you out.
• Keep your identity consistent: the same brand name, description and company facts on your website, your profiles and in your Organization markup, so that no system confuses you with a similarly named company.
• Earn third-party mentions: AI assistants tend to recommend the brands that independent sources describe in the same way again and again. A brand mention in a comparison article, a review or a trade publication puts you into the texts these systems read.
• Fix the source, not just the answer: find the pages an incorrect answer relies on, get errors corrected there and state the right facts clearly on your own website.
• Measure over months: track a fixed set of prompts, because answers vary by wording, region and day. More on measuring this under AI visibility.

Conclusion

Online reputation management is routine rather than a crisis project: monitor, respond and build good content. Because AI assistants name brands mainly based on what others write about them, work on mentions is now part of it. With digital PR and brand mentions you can place your brand in the media and comparison articles that people and AI systems read.

Frequently asked questions

Can you remove negative search results from Google?

Only in specific cases, for example illegal content or, for private individuals in the EU, the right to be forgotten. Fair criticism of a company usually stays visible, so a good reply and new, strong content are the way to respond.

What can you do if an AI assistant says wrong things about your company?

Correct the source, not just the answer: check which pages the answer relies on, have false information corrected there and publish the right facts clearly on your website. You can also report the wrong answer through the assistant's feedback function.

Which tools help with online reputation management?

Free ones are enough to start: alerts for your brand name, your Google Business Profile and regular searches for your name. For mentions in AI answers there are tools such as Ahrefs Brand Radar, which we use to track our own brand.

How long does online reputation management take?

Responding to reviews works immediately, while changing what appears for your name in search and in AI answers takes months of steady work. Plan it as an ongoing task rather than a one-off project.

Related terms: Digital PR · Press release · Answer engine optimization · Off-page SEO