• Web Ad.vantage, Thursday, May 29, 2008 12:45 PM

There's no shortage of examples of odd or potentially brand-damaging search rankings in the wild, and as Lisa Melvin illustrates, they're often the best tools to use when trying to instruct marketers on the necessity of search reputation management.

For example, Hyundai demonstrates good ownership of the first SERP for "Hyundai," with its official U.S. homepage in the top organic spot, individual dealer Web sites, a Wikipedia listing and news clips below. The company also secured the top spot in paid search.

But a search for "Hyundi," a common misspelling, turns up no official Hyundai info above the fold. Instead, searchers see listings with headings like "Hyundi - three cars have transmission trouble," "bad Hyundi," (complete with a snippet describing the car as "the worst car ever") and a tale of woe from the Rip Off Report. While Google suggests the correct spelling, searchers still have the chance to glimpse all of this negativity--and the question of whether they'll try a search for the original brand again, or be scared off by the bad rap and head in a different direction.

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