Also think about the appearance of the content in a search result.
How tempting is the link? Is it obviously about you? Content that
has a compelling headline (“Joe Smith is a liar and a cheat” or even
just “Learn the truth about Joe Smith”) is likely to attract far more
clicks and readers than content with a boring or obscure headline
(“Regarding falsity of recent reports”), even if the exact same false in-
formation is repeated across both sites. Compare the prominence of
the negative information to the prominence of positive and neutral
information; if there is positive or neutral information with a com-
pelling headline, it may draw many clicks away from the false or mis-
leading negative information.
Measuring the Audience: Blogs, Forums, and Others
If the content is being distributed by a blog, discussion forum, or
other social site, think about the users of that site. How many peo-
ple use or visit the site? A personal blog is unlikely to attract many
readers unless it is written by an online celebrity like Cory Doctorow,
while a national gossip blog (e.g., TMZ or Gawker) is bound to at-
tract hundreds of thousands of readers per day. Tools like Alexa.com
allow you to estimate how popular a site is.
Think about whether the audience of the site includes people
you are likely to know and interact with. For example, a neighbor-
hood “microblog” may not attract many readers, but it is certain to
reach people near you. If you are an aspiring professional, a dis-
cussion board dedicated to your field is likely to reach people with
whom you will interact. And if you run a small business, a blog
dedicated to consumer issues will likely reach some of your cus-
tomers. On the other hand, national discussion forums dedicated
to sports, jokes, and breaking news tend to attract a very generalist
audience; there is nothing unique to you about most of these fo-
rums. Content on that kind of site may reach many thousands of
people, but you are likely to know and interact with only a handful
of them.
Wild West 2.0160
Measuring the Audience: Overall Concerns
Content that is obviously false or a joke will have less impact than
content that appears reliable. But, remember that sarcasm doesn’t
carry very well online, so many people might believe false or negative
content to be earnest even if it is “obviously” a joke to you.
If you share a name with somebody else, consider whether other
people will confuse information about you and information about
the other person. You will probably be able to figure out what con-
tent refers to you and what refers to your “doppelnamer.” But, many
other people will not be able to tell which content refers to which
person. Remember that confusion over names works both ways;
readers might write off negative information that is actually about
you if they (falsely) believe that it is about somebody else with the
same name, but they might also think that negative information
about somebody else is about you. See how much other context sur-
rounds any negative information, and try to figure out if a casual
reader would be able to determine if it is about you or somebody
else. Hints like your city, occupation, university, and other informa-
tion might make the difference between your being confused with
somebody else and not.
In the end, measuring the harm caused by online content comes
down to an intuitive feel: How many people see it, how well do you
know those people, and how bad does the content look?
Notes
1. Taro Gomi, Everybody Poops (Kane/Miller 1993). Go: http://wildwest2.com/
go/901.
2. Holly Jackson, “Leaked AOL Search Logs Take Center Stage in New Play,”
CNET, June 13, 2008. Go: http://wildwest2.com/go/902.
3. “The Short Attention Span of Web Searchers: Most Never Read Past 3
Results,” ReputationDefenderBlog, June 16, 2008. Go: http://wildwest2.com/
go/903.
How to Measure Damage to Your Internet Reputation 16 1
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