Unpredictable. Unfocused. Just like life.

Seth Godin mentions a company that claims to be able to purge bad stuff about your company from Google:

Jeff points us to Done, an SEO firm that claims it can quash bad reviews from showing up in Google. Sort of a reverse SEO play, they offer to take angry customer rants or riffs on sites like Consumer Reports and make them less likely to show up in a Google search. MSNBC reports that they point to success with companies like WebLoyalty.com. (Typical search here). Marketers love this story. They love the idea that SEO could be done in reverse and that unfair and unjust besmirchments can be made to disappear.

He points out the fallacy behind this story - people will just write more negative stuff - and notes that the best plan of course is to strive to do the right thing: The real answer is simple: be transparent, do good work, answer your legitimate critics in the same forum or through your actions.

That led me to wonder though. Which do you find more believable? A positive comment or a negative one?

Do we assume that a negative comment must be sincere and accurate because the writer must have used the product and found it lacking?

Do we assume that a positive comment must have been created by some corporate shill?

Just how do we determine the validity of a particular review if we haven't used the product and don't know the author?

And as a company, do you want it to be know that you hired the services of a company like this, rather than making an honest attempt to fix the problem?

Just because a bad review no longer shows up in Google, does that mean that the conversation is over?