Reputation Management Glossary: 46 Terms Explained

This reputation management glossary defines 46 terms you are likely to hear from agencies, platforms and lawyers when dealing with reviews, search results and online content. Most definitions link to a guide that covers the topic in full.

Legal terms are described in general terms so you can follow a conversation. If one applies to your situation, talk to a lawyer.

A to C

• AI answers (AI Overviews): Summaries that search engines and AI assistants write from reviews, articles and profiles. They repeat what the sources say; see our guide to reputation in AI search.
• Anti-SLAPP law: A state law that lets a defendant ask a court to dismiss a lawsuit aimed at silencing lawful speech, such as an honest review. In many states the person who sued can be ordered to pay the defendant’s legal fees.
• Astroturfing: Fake grassroots activity, such as a business posting praise under invented identities to look popular. It breaks platform rules and the FTC’s review rule, and our guide on buying Google reviews explains why it tends to be caught.
• Autocomplete: The search suggestions Google shows as someone types, such as “your brand + scam”. Google removes suggestions only when they break its policies, as our guide to autocomplete suggestions explains.
• Brand monitoring: Tracking new reviews, mentions, articles and search results about a business or person so you can respond early. It can be done with free alerts or a dedicated monitoring service.
• Brand SERP: The search results page for your business name. It is often a buyer’s first impression; see how to control your brand search results.
• Business Profile: Google’s free listing for a business, shown in Maps and in search, with hours, photos and reviews. Keeping it complete and accurate is the core of Google Business Profile management.
• Consumer complaint site: A website that publishes complaints about businesses, sometimes with few rules and little moderation. Removal options vary widely by site, as our guide to consumer complaint sites sets out.
• Consumer Review Fairness Act: A 2016 US federal law that makes it unlawful for businesses to use contract terms that stop customers from posting honest reviews. “Non-disparagement” clauses in customer contracts are generally void under it.
• Crisis communication plan: A written plan that sets out who speaks for the business, who approves statements and what happens in the first hours of a crisis. Our guide to building a crisis communication plan includes a template.

D to G

• Data broker: A company that collects and sells personal information, often published on people-search sites with addresses and phone numbers. Most offer opt-out forms, covered in our guide to people-search site removal.
• Defamation: A false statement of fact, presented as true, that harms someone’s reputation. Opinions, even harsh ones, are generally not defamation; see defamation vs opinion.
• Delisting: Removing a page from search results without the page itself being deleted from the website. Search engines delist content for specific reasons, such as certain personal information or a valid legal request, handled through content removal.
• DMCA takedown notice: A request under the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act asking a host or search engine to remove content that copies work you own, such as your photos. It is only for genuine copyright claims; see how to file a DMCA takedown notice.
• Doxxing: Publishing someone’s private information, such as a home address, to expose or intimidate them. Google and most platforms offer removal routes, listed in our guide on what to do if you’ve been doxxed.
• Earned media: Coverage you don’t pay for or publish yourself, such as news articles, interviews and independent reviews. It carries more trust than owned media, and our guide on getting press coverage covers how to earn it.
• FTC review rule: The Federal Trade Commission’s 2024 rule on consumer reviews and testimonials. It bans fake reviews, buying reviews, undisclosed insider reviews, review suppression and incentives conditioned on sentiment, as our guide to the FTC fake review rule explains.

H to L

• Holding statement: A short, factual statement issued early in a crisis, before all the facts are known, saying what you know and when you will update. Our guide to writing a holding statement includes examples.
• Incentivized review: A review given in exchange for something of value, such as a discount or entry into a prize draw. Google prohibits them, and the FTC rule bans incentives conditioned on a positive review; our guide to getting more Google reviews sticks to plain asking.
• Insider review: A review written by an owner, employee or their relatives. Under the FTC rule, a business must not publish or procure such reviews without clearly disclosing the connection.
• Knowledge panel: The information box Google shows beside results for well-known people, organizations and brands. You can’t create one directly, but you can make one more likely, as our knowledge panel guide explains.
• Libel: Defamation in a fixed form, such as a written review, article or post. Most online defamation is libel rather than slander.
• Local pack: The map and short list of businesses Google shows for local searches such as “dentist near me”. Ratings, relevance and distance all affect who appears, which is why reviews matter so much for small businesses.

M to R

• NAP: Name, address and phone number. Keeping NAP identical across your website, Business Profile and directories helps search engines trust your listing; see how to fix wrong information on Google.
• NCII: Non-consensual intimate imagery, meaning explicit images shared without the subject’s consent. Google and major platforms offer removal routes for it, as our guide to removing images from Google describes.
• Noindex: A tag a website owner can add to a page that tells search engines not to show it in results. Asking a publisher to noindex an old story is often more realistic than asking them to delete it, a point our guide to removing a news article from Google covers.
• ORM (online reputation management): The work of monitoring, improving and protecting what people find about a business or person online, across reviews, search results and social media. See our overview of online reputation management.
• Owned media: Channels you control, such as your website, blog and social profiles. Strong owned media is the base of any plan to rank for your own name.
• People Also Ask: The expandable box of related questions Google shows in many results. Questions about your business can surface old complaints, so it is worth knowing how to handle People Also Ask results.
• Refresh Outdated Content: A Google tool that asks Google to update its search listing after the source page has changed or been removed. It can’t remove a page that is still live; see how to remove outdated content from Google.
• Reputation audit: A structured review of what people find when they search you: search results, ratings, review themes and risks. It is the first step of our method, and you can request a free reputation audit.
• Reputation ROI: The estimated return on reputation work, based on changes in leads, conversions and revenue measured against cost. Our guide to reputation management ROI shows how to estimate it honestly.
• Results about you: Google’s tool for requesting removal of search results that show your personal contact details, such as your home address or phone number. Our guide to removing personal information from Google walks through it.
• Review bombing: A sudden wave of negative reviews, often from people who were never customers, usually triggered by a news story or viral post. Platforms can remove reviews that break their policies once reported; see our review bombing guide.
• Review gating: Asking customers how they feel first and inviting only happy ones to post a public review. Google prohibits it and the FTC has warned it can be deceptive, as our guide to review gating explains.
• Review suppression: Stopping negative reviews from appearing, for example by threatening reviewers or showing only positive reviews while implying they are all of them. The FTC rule bans it; honest review management answers criticism instead.
• Right to be forgotten: The EU and UK right, under GDPR Article 17, to ask for certain personal data to be erased or delisted. It applies to people in those jurisdictions and is not a US right.

S to Z

• Section 230: The US law that generally shields websites from liability for what their users post. It is why platforms rarely remove content simply because it is negative, as our guide to removing a Reddit post explains.
• Sentiment: Whether mentions, reviews or search results about you are positive, neutral or negative. Tracking it is a core way to measure online reputation.
• SERP: Search engine results page, the page of results for a given search. Page one of the SERP for your name is what most people ever see; our guide on how to check your online reputation starts there.
• Share of voice: Your portion of the mentions, reviews or search visibility in your market compared with competitors. It is a useful benchmark in a competitor reputation analysis.
• Slander: Spoken, unrecorded defamation, such as a false statement made aloud at a meeting. Recorded or broadcast statements are often treated as libel instead.
• Software review sites: Platforms such as G2 and Capterra where business buyers rate software. They matter most for SaaS companies; see our guide to G2 and Capterra reviews.
• Status codes (301 and 410): Signals a web server sends about a page. A 301 means the page has moved permanently to a new address, and a 410 means it has been deliberately removed, which tells search engines to drop it.
• Suppression: Pushing a negative search result down by publishing and promoting accurate, stronger content that outranks it. The negative page stays online but gets seen far less; see search result suppression.
• Testimonial: A customer endorsement you publish in your own marketing. The FTC rule covers testimonials as well as reviews, so they must be genuine and fairly selected; see how to display reviews on your website.

How the terms fit together: an example

This scenario is illustrative, not a real client. A dental practice owner searches the practice name and sees a brand SERP with the website first, the Business Profile on the right, a complaint site in fourth place and a People Also Ask box asking “Is this dentist legit?”.

Her review profile shows a burst of one-star ratings in a single weekend, from accounts with no history. That pattern suggests review bombing, which she reports to Google. One review names a patient’s treatment in its text, so her reply must follow HIPAA and say nothing that confirms the reviewer is a patient.

The complaint page is lawful opinion and Section 230 protects the host, so there is unlikely to be a removal route. Instead she builds owned media and asks every patient for a review, with no gating and no incentives. Over the following months, page-one sentiment improves and the complaint slips down: suppression, done the slow, honest way.

Frequently asked questions