A lot of people are so interested in Food Network’s show Dinner: Impossible they even read the couple of articles I wrote on this blog earlier this year about the Robert Irvine situation. You can read my original articles from July 2008 here and here, if you’re curious.
The Robert Irvine story has proven to be more popular than some of the linking techniques I’ve shared here and on the Best SEO Blog, but maybe that just comes down to demographics. Still, for all you Robert Irvine fans, if you haven’t heard the good news yet, he’ll be back as host of Dinner: Impossible in 2009. Apparently he’s started filming six episodes (for this season) already.
I found a story here which, while not getting all the facts straight, quotes Chef Michael Symon as saying, “Right from the get-go, we knew Robert was probably going to come back and do the show – but we couldn’t say that….”
Hm. Okay, Food Network may not be in Hollywood but that sounds so oh-Hollywood-esque. Was that really the plan, to give Robert time off to clean up his reputation, or did Food Network look at the ratings and say, “Oops. We goofed.”
Michael Symon seems like a personable guy on the show but, frankly, I lost interest after 2-3 episodes. I don’t think the production values were there, for the most part, that I had come to expect from the Robert Irvine episodes. Don’t get me wrong: Michael Symon can cook, and he can cook for a LOT of people. But I think they just gave him some rather uninteresting assignments.
So what does all that have to do with SEO Theory? Well, let’s talk about legacy search engine optimization. You cannot actually clean up your search results. People will still be finding my old articles about Robert Irvine for years to come. I may occasionally do him the kindness of pointing people to the Robert Irvine blog, where they can read his latest thoughts about life and cooking.
Old stuff hangs around the Web forever. News sites don’t actually clean up their erroneous stories. They may publish a “retraction” somewhere on another page, but if they omit relevant information (such as the fact that Irvine refuted some of the muckraking journalism that smeared his name) from their article, that article will pretty much remain intact.
Don’t get me wrong: Robert Irvine admitted he made some false claims, but the allegations of lying went too far and he was indeed able to substantiate some of the claims that have been falsely portrayed as lies by members of the news media.
You cannot, however, make the news media’s errors go away. Sure, you could go to court and maybe win a lawsuit but most people cannot afford to do that and many people would simply say, “Well, you got to tell your side of the story and that is fair”.
The real loser in all this may be the Food Network, who look kind of foolish for yanking one of their most popular stars and then coming out with a story about “we were just giving him a chance to clean up his act”. This is not the first time they have brought back a disgraced personality and given him a chance to “clear the air” (Josh Garcia was similarly tarred and feather in last season’s Next Food Network Star scandal).
People have questioned the Food Network’s ability to vet its stars and contestants, and one might ask if the Food Network doesn’t tacitly welcome these kinds of scandals for the publicity value they engender. That is, Food Network doesn’t just drop someone who has gotten into hot water with the media and online world — they inflict suitable moral outrage and punishment and then bring back the person later on.
There’s a dual aspect in this approach to handling scandal. On one hand, it shows you care about the people you work with and I have no doubt that the Food Network audience appreciates the second chance (sort of) philosophy that Food Network has been gradually developing. On the other hand, the tarnish of scandal may slowly be transferring to Food Network. What are they going to do if a third person is caught resume-stuffing on air?
There is only so much Food Network can do to help its on-air personalities fix their reputations — the old news articles and blog posts and forum discussions will hang around for years, unchallenged in the search results except by occasional opportunistic content such as this article.
People won’t forget. They will gradually pay less and less attention to old scandals as time passes, but search engine reputation management is really not about fixing things today. It’s about ensuring that you tell your side of the story as often as necessary, so that people who want to know what happened don’t see a biased view three or five years down the road.
It takes a long-term commitment to developing a credible, respectable search image that helps people understand that, sure, you had a bad episode. But you’ve moved on. You’re now out there saving babies or doing whatever good things you do.
Right now, there is no past on the Web. There may not be a past for a very long time. You’re at the mercy of the good graces and bad judgement of other people when it comes to your online reputation.
{ 0 comments… add one now }
You must log in to post a comment.