Reputation When old coverage outranks everything you have done since

This is the most common version of the problem and the one with the fewest options. Nothing on your first page is false, nothing breaks a policy, and none of it is coming down. It is simply old, and it outranks everything you have built since because it has had years to accumulate what search engines count. The fix is arithmetic rather than argument, and it is worth understanding before you pay anybody to attempt it.

Accurate pages do not come down, and should not

No removal route exists for a true story, and a firm claiming otherwise is going to fail or do something you would not want done in your name. Real journalism stays. The job is making it not the first thing anybody sees.

Why the old thing wins

Age, links, and the absence of competition. A news domain has authority yours does not, the story has been linked to for years, and if nothing current about you exists then there is nothing for it to lose to. The third one is the only one you control quickly.

The page is winning because it is unopposed

When four pages mention you and one is a story from 2019, that story is page one by default. There is no competition to speak of, so it takes almost nothing to hold the position. Most people read this as the story being powerful when it is really the rest of the page being empty.

That is also why it is fixable. The gap between one result and ten is much larger than the gap between ten and eleven, and the first few genuinely good pages move things more than everything that comes after.

What actually competes

A website on a domain you own is the anchor, and it is the one asset nobody can reprice or deplatform. Profiles fill the gaps around it, and they work as inventory rather than a scattergun: the set that covers what is missing, not forty abandoned accounts that rank for nothing and read badly to anyone paying attention.

Then something has to keep arriving. A site built once and abandoned drifts back down, which is the part of this that genuinely does continue after the build, and it is the honest argument for staying involved rather than the monthly fee our retainer guide takes apart.

The timeline is months, not weeks

Outranking runs on an index, not on effort. Pages get crawled, they earn position, and the thing you want lower moves down as the things above it earn their place. Six page-one bankruptcy results took three months to clear in our bankruptcy work, and part of that was removal, which is the faster half.

Anybody promising page one by the end of the month is describing a schedule search engines do not run. Our timelines guide has the real numbers from our own engagements.

Check what is actually there first

Before you buy anything, sort your own first two pages into what can come down, what cannot, what is missing, and what is simply stale. Our self-opposition research checklist runs that audit in four layers and costs nothing.

If the sort comes back mostly stale and missing, that is this job, and the whole first two pages is $2,488, one time.

Give it something to lose to.

A website you own, the profile set that fills the gaps, and the accurate pages that push an old story off the top. One flat fee.

Have us do it.

See the scope, price, and next steps for the help this guide describes.

See the service

Your work deserves attention, too.

Addressing one harmful post is one part of the picture. We also help creators promote their work, monitor their name, and respond to ongoing harassment. Start with the part you need.

Protect your work and your public presence

Explore your options

Every guide we publish is free and ungated. Browse all of them, see what we do and what it costs, or read why we built this company.

Written by Drew Chapin, who ran all of this on his own name first.