Online Reputation Management (ORM): What It Is and How to Do It

Short answer: Online reputation management (ORM) is the ongoing work of monitoring and improving what people find when they look up your business online: reviews, search results, social posts and, increasingly, what AI assistants say about you. It combines listening, responding, fixing real problems and publishing accurate information, without fake reviews or attempts to hide legitimate criticism.

A prospect searches your name before a sales call. The first things they see are a two-star review nobody answered, an out-of-date Business Profile and an AI summary that repeats a complaint you fixed a year ago. You never hear about the deal you lost.

This guide gives owners, marketing managers and founders a working ORM process, whether you run one clinic, a chain of stores or a B2B firm with few reviews and many search results. It covers monitoring, a review response playbook, brand search results, AI answers and the legal limits, with links to Google’s and the US Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) own rules so you can check them.

What is online reputation management?

Online reputation management means tracking how your business is described online and acting to keep that picture accurate and positive. It covers four areas: reviews, search results, social and community conversations, and AI-generated answers about your brand.

ORM sits between marketing, customer service and PR. Marketing publishes the content people find, customer service resolves the complaints behind bad reviews, and PR shapes how journalists and other sites talk about you. A good ORM programme connects all three, so a pattern in reviews leads to an operational fix, not just a polite reply.

Ratings also affect revenue. A frequently cited Harvard Business School working paper by Michael Luca found that a one-star increase in Yelp rating led to a 5–9% increase in revenue for independent restaurants in Washington State, while ratings did not affect chain restaurants. The finding is limited to one platform and sector, but it suggests ratings are worth managing.

What does ORM include?

ORM includes monitoring, review management, search result management, social listening, AI answer monitoring and crisis response. Most small businesses need the first three every week; the rest scale with size and risk.

How do you monitor your online reputation?

Check a fixed list of places on a fixed schedule, and set alerts for your brand, product and key people’s names. The aim is to catch problems while they are small and to spot patterns across many reviews.

1. Search your own brand. Search your business name, your name plus “reviews”, “complaints” and “scam”, and your main product names. Note what appears on page one, including any knowledge panel and Business Profile.
2. List your review platforms. Google is usually first, followed by the marketplaces, app stores, job sites and industry directories your customers actually use.
3. Set alerts. Use alerts or a social listening tool for brand mentions so you hear about articles, forum threads and social posts.
4. Ask the AI assistants. Ask ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Copilot and Google’s AI Mode questions such as “What is [brand] known for?” and “Is [brand] reliable?”. Record the answers and the sources they cite.
5. Track a few numbers monthly. Average rating, number of new reviews, response rate, response time, the recurring themes in negative reviews, and how many page-one results for your brand you own or control.

Weekly checks are enough for most small businesses. If you handle a high volume of customers or work in a sensitive sector such as healthcare or finance, check reviews daily.

How should you respond to reviews?

Reply to every review you can, quickly and specifically, and take detailed complaints offline. You are writing for the next customer as much as for the reviewer, so show that you listen and fix problems.

On Google, only verified businesses can reply, and the reviewer is notified when you reply. Replies are checked against Google’s content policies, usually within minutes but sometimes longer, and reviewers can update their review after reading your response. A good reply is one of the few direct ways to turn a negative review around.

Review response playbook

If a review breaks Google’s policies, you can report it from your Business Profile or the Reviews Management Tool. Google says evaluation typically takes several days, offers a one-time appeal, and is clear that you should not report a review just because you disagree with it. Only policy violations are removed.

For turning complaints into improvements, see our article on handling negative feedback as a startup.

How do you get more genuine reviews?

Ask every customer, at the moment they are most satisfied, with a direct link and no conditions attached. A steady flow of recent, genuine reviews lifts your average rating and reduces the weight of any single bad one.

Review links, QR codes, email and WhatsApp requests and timing are covered in our guide on how to get more Google reviews. Reviews also feed the AI summaries that Amazon and Google now show; our article on Amazon’s AI review summaries explains what drives them.

How do you manage search results for your brand name?

Make sure accurate, useful pages you own or influence rank for your name, and fix incorrect information at its source. You generally cannot remove lawful criticism, but you can make sure it is not the only thing people see.

• Your website. Clear About, Contact, team and policy pages give search engines and people authoritative information about you.
• Google Business Profile. If you serve customers at a location or in a service area, Google recommends a Business Profile to manage your presence on Search and Maps. Keep hours, categories, services and photos current.
• Knowledge panel. If a knowledge panel appears for your brand, you can claim it by verifying through an official site or profile, then suggest corrections with supporting links.
• Social profiles and directories. Active, consistent profiles on the platforms your customers use often rank for your brand name.
• Earned coverage. Articles, interviews and features on reputable sites add credible third-party pages. Our guide to how digital PR earns coverage explains the process.

Removal is limited. Google’s personal content policies let people request removal of items such as personal contact details, financial account numbers and doxxing content, but Google says it may not remove content that is newsworthy or important to the public. Other removals depend on local law and go through Google’s legal process. A critical but lawful review or article will normally stay.

Can you influence what AI assistants say about your business?

Yes, indirectly. AI assistants draw on what they can find about you: your website, your Business Profile, reviews, directories, news and discussions. You shape the answer by making accurate information easy to find and earning genuine third-party mentions, not by trying to manipulate the AI.

Google says its generative AI features can show what’s being said about products and services across the web, and that seeking inauthentic mentions “isn’t as helpful as it might seem”. Its AI features also depend on the same ranking and spam systems as Search. For Google, there are no special optimisations needed to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode; pages must simply be indexed and eligible for a snippet, and Google advises keeping Business Profile information current.

ChatGPT search works differently: OpenAI states that sites opted out of OAI-SearchBot will not be shown in ChatGPT search answers. If your robots.txt or hosting setup blocks that crawler, ChatGPT may describe you from other people’s pages instead of your own.

A practical routine for AI answers:

1. Ask the main assistants the questions customers ask about you, monthly, and save the answers and cited sources.
2. Where an answer is wrong, find the source it relies on. Fix your own pages first, then update directory listings and Business Profile details.
3. Publish clear, factual pages that answer common questions about your business: what you do, where you operate, pricing approach, policies and how to contact you.
4. Check your robots.txt and CDN settings allow the search crawlers you want, such as Googlebot and OAI-SearchBot.
5. Address the recurring complaints in reviews. If many reviews mention slow delivery, AI summaries are likely to mention it too, whatever your website says.

Our product Upranke tracks whether your business shows up in AI answers, so you can see changes over time instead of checking by hand.

What can’t ORM ethically or legally do?

ORM cannot ethically create fake reviews, pay for positive ones, suppress genuine criticism with threats or pass off company-controlled content as independent. Several of these practices are now explicitly illegal in the US, and they break Google’s policies everywhere.

The FTC’s rule on consumer reviews and testimonials went into effect on 21 October 2024, and the FTC can seek civil penalties against knowing violators. According to the FTC’s announcement of the final rule, it prohibits:

• Fake reviews and testimonials, including AI-generated ones and those by people who did not use the business.
• Incentives conditioned on a review expressing a particular sentiment, positive or negative.
• Insider reviews (by staff or managers) without clear disclosure of the connection.
• Company-controlled review sites presented as independent.
• Suppressing negative reviews through groundless legal threats, intimidation or certain false accusations.
• Buying or selling fake followers, views or other social media indicators for commercial purposes.

Google’s rules are stricter in places. Google Maps’ content policy bans reviews that have been paid for, directly or in kind, and bars businesses from offering incentives such as discounts or free services for reviews, selectively asking only happy customers, or discouraging negative reviews. Conflict-of-interest reviews, including from current or former employees, are also not allowed.

Other markets have their own rules. In India, the Bureau of Indian Standards runs a conformity assessment scheme for IS 19000:2022, the standard covering online consumer reviews. Wherever you operate, treat honest reviews as non-negotiable: fake ones put your listings, ad accounts and legal standing at risk.

Be wary of any provider that promises to “remove all negative reviews”, “push down” critical articles within days or post reviews on your behalf. Those promises usually rely on the practices above.

How do you set up an ORM process?

Assign an owner, set response rules, schedule checks and report a few metrics monthly. Consistency matters more than tools.

1. Assign ownership. One person or team owns monitoring and replies, with a named escalation contact for serious issues.
2. Write response guidelines. Use the playbook above, set a target response time (for example, within two working days) and list topics that must go to a manager or legal adviser.
3. Build a review request into operations. Ask every customer after delivery, appointment or project completion.
4. Close the loop. Share recurring complaint themes with operations each month and track whether they decline.
5. Audit search and AI answers quarterly. Record page-one results and AI assistant answers for your brand, and plan fixes for anything wrong.
6. Prepare for a crisis. Draft holding statements, decide who can speak publicly and agree when to pause scheduled posts and ads.

Frequently asked questions

Can I get a negative Google review removed?

Only if it breaks Google’s policies, for example spam, fake or paid engagement, a conflict of interest or other content Google prohibits. Report it from your Business Profile or the Reviews Management Tool and use the one-time appeal if the report is rejected. Google does not remove reviews just because they are negative or you disagree with them. For a fair complaint, the better route is a helpful public reply and fixing the problem.

How long does online reputation management take?

Replies and profile fixes take effect within days. Improving an average rating takes longer because it depends on a steady flow of new reviews, so expect months rather than weeks. Changing which pages rank for your brand name, or how AI assistants describe you, depends on how quickly search engines recrawl updated pages and how fast you earn new coverage, which also typically takes months.

Should I reply to every review?

Replying to every review is a good default, especially negative and mixed ones, because future customers read your replies. For businesses with very high volumes, prioritise all negative and detailed reviews and reply to positive ones in batches with specific, non-templated messages. Never reveal private customer information in a reply, and keep responses calm even when a review feels unfair.

Is it legal to pay for reviews?

Paying for positive reviews or fake reviews is illegal in the US under the FTC’s consumer reviews rule and is banned by Google. The FTC rule allows incentives not tied to sentiment in some cases, but Google prohibits any incentive for reviews on Maps and Business Profiles. The safest approach is to ask all customers for honest feedback without offering anything in return.

What should I do if an AI assistant says something wrong about my business?

Find out which sources it cites or is likely to rely on, then correct the information there: your website, Business Profile, directory listings and social profiles. Use the feedback option in the AI product if one is available. Publish a clear page answering the question correctly, and check that crawlers can access it. Re-check the answer after a few weeks, since updates are not instant.

Do I need an agency for ORM?

Not always. A small business can handle monitoring and replies in-house with a clear process. An agency helps when review volume is high, when you have several locations, when there is a crisis or a persistent negative search result, or when you want earned coverage and AI answer monitoring alongside review management. Avoid any provider that offers fake reviews or guaranteed removals.

If you want a monitoring routine, response playbook and search and AI answer audit set up for your business, our online reputation management service can help.