Argent Media is an Online Reputation Management Agency located in Dallas, Texas, that provides international exclusive, pro-level online reputation management services for individuals and organizations. We chose to work in Reputation Management because helping people is compelling to us! We provide ethical, honest services using industry-leading best practices. If your reputation is vulnerable, or if it has already been harmed, please contact us to explore what may be possible to repair it.

Most of our clients come to us when they have something on the internet that is detracting from their reputation, particularly in the most visible point at which people discover information about them -- in the search engine results. When someone searches for your name in Google, Bing, or another search engine, the first things that appear on the page make an impression upon people. If one of the higher-ranking or more prominent items is negative, it can turn people off very quickly. First impressions matter.
One of the primary ways to handle negative search results is to work to make positive or neutral things outrank the negative items, pushing them down and off of the first pages of search results. We do this with "Search Engine Optimization", or "SEO" for short. SEO is a set of practices that is intended to increase the ranking of a webpage, website, or other internet media in search results.

At Argent Media, we are expert at SEO, and have worked at it for over twenty years. When we accept a Reputation client, we provide development and/or consulting to assist the client in getting web media that they control to outrank any negative items.

SEO is not limited to a website that you operate, but the practices also may be used to optimize the rankings of social media profiles, blogs and blog posts, images, videos, and other web media.

Of course, there are other aspects of Online Reputation Management outside of SEO options. We provide other services in this regard as well -- read on, below.

In an ideal scenario, one could simply remove a negative item that disparages your name, and everything would go back to being positive. We love helping to make that happen! And, it does happen at times. With experience, one can sometimes use aspects of the internet against the negative content. For instance, we have requested that Google remove negative reviews, Yelp remove negative reviews, and newspapers to remove negative articles. Having background experience and familiarity with popular internet platforms helps, since content that is against platforms' policies can sometimes be removed with little fuss. We have petitioned Google many times on behalf of clients, and in many instances we have been successful.

In other instances, one can sue individuals or organizations for defamation. Once you have a court finding in your favor, you can compel the defamer to remove negative content, and/or you can request platforms such as Google to remove the defamatory items. We have worked with a number of reputable law firms on defamation lawsuits, so if you feel this might be an option, contact us and we will connect you with attorneys specializing in defamation law and related privacy/harassment/disparagement litigation. The principal and founder of Argent Media, Chris Silver Smith, has served as a reputation expert witness in numbers of court cases involving defamation and online reputation issues, including trademark infringement and product counterfeiting.

Because litigation can be costly, some opt to focus solely upon reputation management strategies for relief. Since litigation can be time-consuming, many will opt to conduct SEO reputation campaigns simultaneous to the litigation in order to begin achieving some improvements and to get relief before the one-to- two or two-plus years of litigation in court plays out.

Of course, laws protecting freedom of speech and laws shielding online publishers from liability (such as Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act) can make it difficult or impossible to prevail in defamation lawsuits.

* NOTE: Some of the more devious reputation service providers offer "guarantees" of removals, or have "guarantee"/"guaranteed" in their business names in order to mislead people who are desparate to fix their reputations. It is considered highly unethical for Reputation Management and SEO providers to offer guarantees, because we do not directly control top internet websites. Avoid unethical service providers, and come to us for straight-talk and a realistic assessment of your options.