Combating Negative Reviews

If you have done what you can internally (like contacting the unhappy customers to try and resolve the issue) to combat negative reviews that appear on sites like Rip-Off Report or CarDealerships.org, here's a list of sites that you should target to help push those bad reviews down in the search rankings.

The strategy here is to create accounts on other sites using your dealership's name as the username of the account. You then utilize the unique (or not so unique) attributes of those sites to help your profiles on them appear above those reviews. For example, here at CarDealerPR.com you would create your account with your dealership's name, post a press release, and link to it (or your profile here) from your own website. This helps build trust, and helps your presence here, which you control, appear above negative reviews.

Here are other sites you can target. Create accounts, link to them, and link them to other pages you control, like your profile at CarDealerPR.com. Remember to use your dealership's name, without doing that your profiles are less likely to appear when people search for your business name.

The List:
Naymz.com - complete your profile as much as possible.
Squidoo.com - create a page with your dealer's name as the URL, along with profile.
Flickr.com - adjust settings to use dealership's name in URL.
Wordpress.com - create a blog, again use name as URL.
LinkedIn.com - add yourself and mention your business a few times, have employees do this too.
CarDealerForums.com - you'll have to post a few times to help your account's rankings.
CarSpace.com - be active in the community.

I hope that helps you against those nasty reviews. I'll be adding more sites so bookmark this.