ReputationDefender is a generalist reputation management firm. The company offers a broad range of services for small businesses, executives, job searchers, enterprises, and individuals looking to clean up their online footprint.
ReputationDefender Compared to the Best Online Reputation Management Solutions
There are a lot of reputation management solutions out there.
Some are large, some are small, and some specialize in different areas. Here’s a quick look at where ReputationDefender fits in the market.
Reputation Defense Network is a great alternative if you need legal help. Their network of lawyers and investigators can help you build a legal case if you need to defend your rights. Rhino Reviews offers a decent range of less common services, including business profile building, crisis management, employer branding, and online press releases. BetterReputation delivers a simple, streamlined, transparent, and affordable approach you won’t find elsewhere–they’re small, fast, and effective if you need help cleaning up your online reputation.
You really can’t go wrong with any of these three, but BetterReputation is the best starting point for most people.
ReputationDefender isn’t one of our top picks–there’s nothing wrong with it, there are just better options for most scenarios. It offers a bit of everything–you’ll be able to get a lot under one roof, but you’ll pay a higher price tag.
ReputationDefender: The Good and the Bad
ReputationDefender does a lot of things well. And by a lot of things… we mean a lot.
It covers the full gamut of reputation needs, whether you’re a business or individual. It sounds great on paper, but also means they may be spread thin rather than improving in specific areas. We prefer working with specialists who are the best at what they do, like BetterReputation for individual reputation repair and Rhino Reviews for review management.
But that doesn’t mean that’s the right route for you. To help you make that decision, here’s a closer look at what ReputationDefender does well and where it falls flat.
What ReputationDefender Is Good At
It has a spotless reputation of its own: ReputationDefender is a trusted resource, backed by the well-respected name of its parent company, Norton.
Free reputation report cards: At no cost to you, ReputationDefender will put together a complete report showing you exactly how others see you from the outside. Perhaps the best part is that you don’t have to wait around for it–you’ll get the report right away.
Custom solutions: If you’re trying to fix or preserve your reputation, you need a service that tailors their approach to your situation. ReputationDefender takes care of this by assigning you a custom reputation manager when you activate your service. There are no one-size-fits-all approaches here. Your manager can answer any questions you have up front, plus you’ll have easy access to them the entire time you work together.
They’ll spend time with you on the phone, tell you the best courses of action depending on your needs, and set expectations so you know what to expect.
Works well for all types of situations: Whether you’re looking for your next job and want to make sure hiring managers see nothing but the best when they Google you or an enterprise company in the midst of a full-blown crisis, ReputationDefender can help.
Prompt service: There are countless reviews confirming the commitment to timely, helpful support from ReputationDefender. When you reach out, your advisor calls back, responds to your emails, and includes time frames on when you can expect things to be resolved. This level of service is reassuring to anyone panicking about negative brand sentiment.
Regular reporting: You don’t have to wonder how things are going or refresh your Google search every few minutes. You’ll get regular reputation reports so you’re always in the loop without having to obsess over it yourself.
Content strategies: One of the ways ReputationDefender combats negative results about your brand is through positive content creation. Instead of focusing solely on removing things you don’t want people to see, they’ll come up with a tactical positive press campaign to spread positivity. Their content is top-notch and they know what it takes to outrank even the most authoritative of news sites.
C-Suite specificity: If you’re a COO, CFO, CEO, or are planning on becoming a C-level executive soon, ReputationDefender can help ensure your reputation stays squeaky clean while keeping private information… private.
VIP services: This applies to anything that doesn’t fall under one of their standard service packages. You’ll work with them to build a custom plan, no matter how sensitive or challenging your case is.
AI-powered cybersecurity: Norton offers a tool called Total Radius that works alongside its services. It leverages AI to monitor, detect, and suggest action related to your reputation. It keeps an eye on your reputation, personal information, and any other potential threats you might not know about. From there, it’ll suggest different actions based on the options available to you.
What ReputationDefender Is Lacking
Their strategies take time: Creating positive, high-quality content takes time on its own. But it takes even longer to start ranking in search engines. On top of that, it can feel like multiple lifespans waiting for it to outrank popular review or news sites (if that’s your goal).
That’s just one aspect of the whole. There may be tons of other moving parts all operating on their own timelines. This isn’t a problem specific to ReputationDefender, but it is something worth knowing.
It’s expensive: Previous customers have stated paying high four figures, with some even paying upwards of $10,000. While the price you pay depends on how much work there is to do, ReputationDefender is definitely on the higher end of the reputation management spectrum. It positions and considers itself a premium service provider, for which you will have to pay if you decide to work with them.
Wide range of services: Depending on who you are, this may be a positive rather than a negative. However, offering such a massive breadth of services means that managers are constantly moving from one service to another rather than getting really good at one or two things. If you need a lot of help in multiple areas, it’s fine. But if you have very specific needs and want the absolute best people for that job, this is probably not the place to get it.
They may upsell you things you don’t need: Because they have such a wide range of products, they likely will try to get you to purchase additional services to increase your lifetime value as a customer. It’s a smart move from a business sense, but can feel… not great as a potential customer.
They’re not perfect: No one likes to be sold a pipe dream, but some ReputationDefender customers felt like they were left with nothing to show after years and thousands of dollars.
These reviews were few and far between, but worth mentioning. Again, this isn’t something that only happens here. Even though there are dozens of proven strategies and playbooks out there, there’s no guarantee they’ll work every single time.
ReputationDefender Services, Plans, and Pricing
There are a lot of different strategies and approaches in the ReputationDefender toolkit.
While none of these options have individualized pricing (and you’ll need a quote and consultation to know what the price tag will be), let’s explore the different solutions this Norton product delivers.
ReputationDefender Search Results Management
The bread-and-butter of reputation management is this. What shows up about your brand on the first page of Google (and other search engines, like DuckDuckGo) has a critical impact on what people think about you.
If you want to control what comes up in search results, ReputationDefender uses situation analysis and content creation to combat negative or misleading information about you or your business. This puts you in control of what people see about you online and pushes negative search results down the pecking order so searchers only see the good stuff.
Pricing can range from as little as $3,000 or cost upwards of $25,000 (or more).
ReputationDefender Personal Branding
If you are an entrepreneur whose name is also your brand, an influencer, or a public figure, ReputationDefender can help keep negative and misleading information at bay.
They provide a specific service for personal branding that makes it easy for you to focus on building your eponymous brand and keep the positives of what people are saying about you visible.
Not only do you get search results management, but they’ll also take an active role in creating consistently professional sentiment of who you are and your body of work. ReputationDefender also stabilizes and optimizes your social media presence, and provides professional website creation, social media auditing, and long-term personal brand monitoring.
Personal branding starts at a one-time fee of $995, but heavily depends on your needs.
ReputationDefender Online Reviews
Online reviews can make or break a business. While negative review suppression is one side of the coin, the (arguably more effective) other side is to encourage and generate more glowing, five-star reviews, quickly.
ReputationDefender helps you strike while the iron’s hot, allowing you options to offer customers for reviewing your brand after a successful sales or customer service interaction. This service proactively approaches customers for feedback about your business so you don’t have to ask them yourself. It’s faster, more effective, and builds more reviews for your business on autopilot. You also get reporting from them that includes review-driven rankings and social media platforms they recommend you focus on to guide your next steps.
Packages start at $2,000 per year. Adding social media, business listing, and customer survey management raises the starting price to $3,500 per year.
ReputationDefender Digital Privacy Management
Everyone knows how important online privacy is. If you have your personal information floating around, you’re just begging for a problem.
Using ReputationDefender puts up a huge roadblock to anyone looking to maliciously use your information against you. They remove all of your personal information from the web, so bad actors can’t scrape for personal information and sell it to spammers, hackers, or anyone else. This service also halts people search sites that use your private information to create online profiles about you or your family.
Privacy packages range in price from $1,000 to $10,000 per year.
ReputationDefender Executive Protection
Earlier we spoke about specific services for C-Level executives. As a CEO, COO, or the other executive, you are a target for unique threats to your privacy, reputation, or personal well-being. This special offering from ReputationDefender removes identifying information that can be used to make educated guesses about your passwords, steal your identity, or even allow malicious people from knowing where you live and spend time.
ReputationDefender VIP Services
If you think you need something a little more extra-mile than what we’ve described above, there are VIP services available to you from ReputationDefender. This includes bespoke plans of attack that really get to the heart of your specific reputation management needs. This service is discreet and handled by a dedicated team that knows how to provide the VIP-level results you need.
With this VIP service, you’ll get search management on steroids, SEO consultations to use what you already have to its full potential, strategic planning for your content, and much more. You’ll get help suppressing the bad bit, raising up the good ones, and repairing your online reputation through this service.
ReputationDefender: The Bottom Line
ReputationDefender can help, whether you’re an individual, executive, small business, or enterprise.
They take a holistic approach to your reputation, which can be very effective as long as you have the budget and patience to see it through.
More specialized providers, like BetterReputation for individual reputation repair, Rhino Reviews for review management, and Reputation Defense Network for legal cases, are often able to provide faster, more affordable services if you know what you need. These types of firms work especially well for smaller businesses and individuals. Generalist providers, on the other hand, can work well for complex needs, including larger companies or more generalized reputation management services.
