Negative reviews to take down competitor

Well, even though I agree with the guys and I wouldn't do it as I would just be better than them it's a tactic that is used a lot.

Business is ruthless so if my life would depend on it..fuck it!! I would destroy anyone in my path. That being said, I have my own method to finish competitors and that's by being better at marketing and services than them

davids355 said:

You can do it, but what’s more efficient - doing negative seo work for every competitor that gets in front of you, or just doing positive seo work for your site?

And what’s more long term? Each time you spend on trying to make your competitors fail is more time you are not learning how to succeed yourself so you’re likely to fall further behind imho.

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You're the man David

jsnow said:

Is this BHW or HippieCentral? Reading all these "karma" or "dick move" high horse nonsense feels like you're living in some parallel universe. What, nobody voted Trump here either? Pfft.

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You obviously don't listen to other peoples opinions or advice based on this rant! Maybe your listening skills could do with a fine tune. People have given opinions on your idea and your response is to throw your toys out of the pram because we didn't happen to agree with your method or offer advice how to execute.

Sorry but if this is how you behave at work then maybe your competitors aren't poaching your staff, maybe your staff are just looking for an escape route.

It may be blackhatworld but that doesn't mean shitting on your competitors.

jsnow said:

Is this BHW or HippieCentral? Reading all these "karma" or "dick move" high horse nonsense feels like you're living in some parallel universe. What, nobody voted Trump here either? Pfft.

Let me drop some real world knowledge here, since some of you obviously never ran your own business, but have options about it that are just so so SO very off it's ridiculous.

1. I love my employees. They are the smartest and most talented people I know. But they are also parts of my business machine.

OMG! This is outrageous! How can you compare people to "parts"?! You're a monster! But here's a thing - every business owner that employs more that 7 people thinks the same way. When I'm calling them "parts" I'm not dehumanising, on contrary - I expand their personas. They are both great people AND parts in my business machine. And my business machine relies heavily on these parts, so yeah - I take offence when someone comes to my shop and fucks around with my machine. You would too and if you claim you wouldn't - you're lying.

2. I've worked with this guy for close to 10 years, side by side. Top talent. Got offers from Facebook and Google, turned them down because he didn't want to work in a big company. Didn't want to leave, had no problem with me or my company. But he got approached by these assholes over and over again. They kept asking him why he isn't signing with them. "Oh, you want this? Well, no problem - we'll deliver" and "You want that? Sure thing, just sign with us". Little by little he ran of excuses. If you're familiar with basic sales psychology - you know how this process works. So yeah - I take offence when someone comes to my shop and persuades my employees to leave.

3. You keep saying "well, be a better employer" or "it's a free market". Free market my ass. There's no such thing as "free" period. Every action has a reaction, that's the law of nature. And "you can do anything" mantra works in every fucking direction. For things that you do and that happen to you. Good AND bad. So being a "better employer" will do nothing for you against hostile takeovers. Nothing but fighting back will do anything for you when you're attacked. Besides, I don't have a problem with them leaving (I could have easily kept everyone from walking away if my trust in them was still there), I HAVE A PROBLEM WITH MOTHERFUCKERS POACHING MY TALENT. How is being a "better employer" gonna help? Will you put a bandaid on a brain tumour and hope it goes away? I sure ain't gonna be that stupid.

Exit interviews - sure, I got them. They will give you answers, but they will not give you the truth. Not because they're bullshitting me, but because they're bullshitting themselves. They have to, otherwise they might actually understand what they're doing. And that ain't gonna sit well with them.

So yeah, I'm coming across as a major asshole here, I see it. But I'm not, I promise.

And just for the record - I didn't do anything. I came here for advise and a meaningful conversation (which I didn't get, btw). So on this note I'd like to send a big FUCK YOU to all the cunt shit turds here that called me everything under the sun for no reason whatsoever. And the next time @proxygo points out why someone hasn't visited in forever - remember this thread.

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If you don't want others opinions... do not fucking ask for them. People like you make me laugh.

You post a question even know you made your mind up already, no matter what people tell you it will be wrong.

You clearly have the intention of being a tool, so go ahead fuck your competitors over.

If you really think karma won't bite you back, in regards to your competitors doing it back to you, you're more of a fool than I first thought.

jsnow said:

Is this BHW or HippieCentral? Reading all these "karma" or "dick move" high horse nonsense feels like you're living in some parallel universe. What, nobody voted Trump here either? Pfft.

And just for the record - I didn't do anything. I came here for advise and a meaningful conversation (which I didn't get, btw). @proxygo points out why someone hasn't visited in forever - remember this thread.

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What kind of 'meaningful' conversation could you possibly have about ruining somebody else's business for no reason?
Very few people would consider employees leaving your company a valid reason.
10 years is a good run, and you're lucky he/she even stayed that long in the first place.
You're acting like we should all throw our morals out the window just because you think you can benefit from it.

Well, my situation is that I typically work for my resellers and I whitelabel SEO services for them using their logo, etc. Everything on the backend is mine and all the work and effort, reports, distributions and content is all done on my end. This gives the reseller an instant capability into the SEO world and branded with their logo.

I recently had one reseller bounce checks and never on time paying. He's had a lot of turnover of employees and I find out that he's all slick salesman and makes a lot of promises. Regardless, I go above and beyond helping him with his clients by giving (and providing at no cost) additional technical advice and solutions such as getting domains back from being hijacked by their previous company or helping them setup their Google Apps for email, etc.

I'm a stand up guy and take integrity seriously. Since I work mainly with other local marketing companies by white-labeling our services for them using their logo, etc., I don't need Ratings or Reviews... but, after cutting ties with this one dead-beat reseller who still owes me a lot of money, he created a fake 1-star review of my company from one of the client accounts that I setup! I first flagged the review, then replied to it referencing that this review was actually posted by an account controlled by X and there are active lawsuits pending for other such fraudulent activities (which there are). The review was taken down by Google after a short period and all is well.... Then, a couple month ago, one of his clients whom I went above-and-beyond to help and always had positive praise (have lots of proof), posted a scathing review of my company and referenced the owner (me), lying about some of the things that I'm most passionate about! He either used her account (that I again setup for) or was able to convince her some how of these lies enough to have her post a review. I emailed her directly asking her why she posted such a thing and that I would help her anyway she needed, but never got a reply back so I flagged the review a couple of times and also replied with similar text about the review being fraudulent. The review is still there and not taken down.

I know it's effecting new business because people want to see who they're dealing with, especially when I deal directly with other marketing and media companies vs. direct to businesses. When another marketing or media company looks at my company and see's 1 review and it's scathing against some of my core principles. For me, it's not like I can get reviews from my current white-label reseller companies I'm working with because they don't want it to be known that they're outsourcing services they're providing to someone else... anyway, I've thought about this a lot and it really pisses me off and I can see why @jsnow want's to do something similar, but in this case I'm getting screwed on 2 fronts, one with the unpaid invoices and another where he's fraudulently using client accounts (or scapegoating me) to post negative reviews! I should have listened to my instincts when I questioned something he did early on, but decided to keep chasing the carrot.

So what would you guys suggest? Do nothing, and keep trying to flag the review? Send her another email asking her to take it down? File a suit against HER (where it should be against the fucker himself but brought her into this situation) on defamation of character or something like that? I have all the emails, text messages and everything from her that shows everything I did for this client was excellent. I'm just in a bad situation and want to move on.