What is a reputation audit?
A reputation audit is a dated survey of what is published about a person or a business, with a route assigned to every item found. It looks in six places: search results for a defined query set, maps and reviews, public social profiles, people search and data broker listings, news and public records, and what AI assistants say when asked. What separates an audit from searching yourself is the output. An audit produces an inventory, a route for each item, a plain list of what is not addressable and why, and a baseline you can measure against later.
What a reputation audit examines
An audit is a survey with a fixed method. It looks in six places, records what it finds, and dates the record.
| Where it looks | What it records | What a finding looks like |
|---|---|---|
| Search results | Every result on the first three pages for your query set | A URL, its position, the site holding it, and the date |
| Maps and reviews | Ratings, review counts and specific problem reviews | A review, its platform, and whether it appears to break a rule |
| Social and video | Public profiles and posts that surface under your name | A profile you do not control, or a post that ranks |
| Data brokers | People search listings carrying your personal details | A listing URL and whether an opt out route exists |
| News, court and public records | Articles, filings and records tied to your name | A publisher, a date, and whether any route reaches it |
| AI answers | What assistants say about you and what they cite | The answer text, the sources named, and the date asked |
The SERP audit: your name as other people see it
A brand search audit records what appears for your query set the way a stranger sees it, which means logged out, in a clean browser session, with location noted. Personalisation is the most common reason an audit disagrees with what a client believes. Your own logged in search is shaped by your history and shows you a friendlier internet than the one your customers use.
Each result gets recorded with its position, the domain holding it, whether you control it, and whether you want it changed. That inventory is the working document for everything afterwards, because it converts a feeling into a countable list of items.
The review audit, across every platform that carries you
The review audit is arithmetic plus policy. It records the rating and review count on each platform, the trend over recent months, response rates, and the specific reviews that appear to violate a published platform rule as opposed to simply being negative.
That distinction is the whole value of the exercise. A truthful negative review is not a removal candidate, and treating it as one wastes months. A review from someone who was never a customer, or one containing personal information or harassment, is a different item with a real route. Our page on Google review policy violations sets out the categories.
The AI answer audit, and why it is now part of the work
Ask an assistant about your business or your name, and record the answer along with the sources it cites. This is newer than the rest of the audit and it matters for a specific reason: an answer engine repeats a summary rather than showing a list, so a single wrong detail can be restated to every person who asks, and it may persist after the underlying page has changed.
Record the date, because these answers move. Our pages on what ChatGPT says about your business and fixing wrong information in AI answers cover what can be done about a bad one.
What an audit reveals that a search does not
Searching yourself tells you what is there. An audit tells you what is actionable, which is a different and more useful thing.
The output that matters is a route assigned to every item: a platform policy complaint, a legal request under a specific law, a privacy or data broker opt out, a copyright notice where your own photograph or writing was republished without permission, suppression, or nothing. The Copyright Office sets out how the Section 512 notice and counter notice process works, and it is a genuinely different route from the rest because it reaches the platform directly rather than depending on policy.
An audit should also name the items with no route, plainly, and explain why. Lawful reporting by a real news organisation generally stays. Public court records remain public. A truthful review stays. A survey that finds every item addressable has not been performed carefully.
A reputation audit checklist you can run yourself
You can do a serviceable version of this in an afternoon, and it will make every later conversation better.
- Write the query set. Your name, misspellings, name plus city, name plus company, and name plus reviews, complaints and lawsuit.
- Search logged out. A clean browser session, no account, three pages deep for each query. Note your location.
- Record every result. URL, position, domain, whether you control it, and whether you want it changed.
- Check maps and reviews. Rating, count, trend, response rate, and any review that appears to break a published rule.
- Check the people search sites. Search your name with your city and note every listing carrying your details.
- Ask an assistant about yourself. Save the answer and the sources it names, with the date.
- Assign a route to each item. Policy, legal, privacy, copyright, suppression, or nothing.
- Date the whole thing and keep it. This is your baseline, and it is the only way to prove later that something changed.
Treat the result as an operating document rather than a one off. The SBA's guidance on managing a business makes the general point that a system produces nothing until a named person owns it and reviews it on a schedule, and a reputation baseline is no different: it is worth refreshing quarterly.
What a free reputation audit is, and what it is not
Plain disclosure, because it belongs here. This reference is published by Aurawave Inc., which also operates The Reputation.org, the firm that performs the free audit this site offers. That is a commercial relationship and you should read this page knowing it.
A free audit of any kind, from anyone, is a scoped assessment rather than a forensic investigation. What it should give you is the inventory, the route assigned to each item, an honest list of what is not addressable, and a sense of sequence. What it is not is a legal opinion, a complete data broker sweep, or a promise about outcomes. If a free audit arrives as a scored report with no items in it and a call booking link, you have been given a lead capture form rather than an audit. A useful one names things you could go and do yourself, and ours is written to that standard.
If you have been handed an audit by a provider, judge it the same way: does it list actual URLs, is it dated, does it say what cannot be fixed, and does it tell you which requests you could file for free. Those four tests separate an assessment from a sales document. The wider question of how to read this market is covered on our page about choosing a reputation management company, and the FTC's advertising and marketing guidance for businesses is the standard any such document should be able to meet.
Questions about what is a reputation audit?
What is a reputation audit?
A dated survey of what is published about a person or business, run against a defined query set and recorded item by item, with a route assigned to each: platform policy, legal, privacy, copyright, suppression, or nothing. The dated record is what makes later change measurable.
What does a reputation audit include?
Search results for your query set, maps and review platforms, public social profiles, people search and data broker listings, news and public records, and what AI assistants answer when asked about you. Each finding is recorded with a URL, a position where relevant, and the date it was captured.
Can I do a reputation audit myself?
Yes. Write a query set, search logged out in a clean browser three pages deep, record every result with its URL and position, check your review platforms and the people search sites, ask an assistant about yourself, then assign a route to each item and date the whole file.
How is an audit different from just googling myself?
Searching tells you what is there. An audit tells you what is actionable. The difference is the route assigned to each item and the honest list of items that have no route, which is what stops months being spent on things that were never removable.
Is a free reputation audit worth having?
It depends what arrives. A useful one lists actual URLs, is dated, says plainly what cannot be fixed, and tells you which requests you could file yourself for free. A scored report with no items and a booking link is a lead capture form rather than an audit.