Is Rip Off Report Losing Traction?

Having clients in the medical online marketing space, I have been battling complaint sites like Rip Off Report for years. But after the recent algo updates from Google in August, I have been noticing some slight and dramatic drops in both web traffic and keyword rankings on those sites. I’m unsure if they are specifically related to the Google Medic Update or if it’s a separate situation (ORM Update?) but they seem to happen around the same time.

You can see here from a screenshot inside of SEMrush that around July – August is when the drop off started to happen. I’m curious to see how far this will go down. I highly doubt that it was any sort of manual action as Google doesn’t do that even in some of the most extreme cases.

Why is Google doing this? Well, there have been thousands of online complaints from Doctors and other types of companies over the years. Even after courts have ordered the site to remove the negative content, to little or no avail. Plus, they also have a business model to where you have to PAY to get your complaints removed! How crazy is that?

Google Trying to Dominate Online Feedback?

Maybe this is just another step to keep your trust in Google products like Google Reviews. With so many tools out there like BirdEye, Reputation.com etc, that actually create separate pages & systems to host internal feedback and reviews of businesses. This might be a way for Google to reel some of this internally to keep the consumer, used to just utilizing Google…..no one else. This will be interesting to keep an eye on for sure!

So… How Can You Remove a RipOff Report from Google?

Unfortunately, you can’t just take it down immediately. You’ll need to take some steps for removal if you’d like to see it pushed down over time. We suggest….

1: Finding the person that write the report and try and make things right.

2: Respond to the report. Yes, Google is going to index that response as well but at least people will see that you’re not taking and BS from people.

3: Join the Corporate Advocacy Program or CAD here. You wont be able to have your report removed but there will be a response from RipOff Report stating the results of the rebutted investigation.

4: Go sue crazy. File a lawsuit against the reporter and RipOff Report.

5: Most common: Bury the report in the search results. You’ll need to work with an experienced Medical SEO company to help you with this.