Best To Think About What You Post Online – Anywhere!

One of the things I’ve always found interesting about the ‘Net is what people say in public. Not just in today’s Web 4.0 environment either, but back to the early days of the current Web with forums. People say things they never should and then later on they come to regret it. Many big name bloggers seem to have this issue quite a bit with saying things they regret 10 minutes later (of course we know that controversy creates cash). What works for bloggers might not necessarily work for businesses.

I’ve always advised my clients to think first, then think again before hitting submit. Remember that a blog owner/site owner/forum owner has no responsibility to remove content, it’s at their discretion. And with this new world of microblogging, sms’ing, etc. we must be even more careful as it’s so easy to "go off" with the new tools.

I’ve had a few times on CN where someone asked me to remove or edit a comment and I’ve done so each time. We all make mistakes. (if people would register on CN, they could edit their comments themselves!)

On HTMLCenter (my other site) it’s a completely different story. Over the 12-year history of the site, I’ve received somewhere around 100 requests to remove comments on the forums because they have damaged a person’s business reputation. You see many Web developers or designers will stop by the forum and ask for help with a client site. They link to the client’s site and then HTMLCenter appears first in Google for the client. LOL. I have even had two people call me crying because of the damage that happened because they asked for help when they claimed to be "all-knowing".

Today I received another request and thought I’d share it:

Hi Allen,
I just wondering if it was possible for you to edit a post I made in June in the programming forum. I posted a web address for a site I was working on, and the forum topic pulls up on the search engine crawls for the site I was working on. It was my mistake and I was hoping there was a way to delete the address from the post or the post itself? The topic title was "<removed>". Thanks for any help with the situation!

And he’s right, when I search for the company name on Google, his forum post for help comes up 1st. (don’t worry it hasn’t driven any traffic to htmlc)

Remember there is no safety net online – what you say can and will be used against you! Think before you write! Just take a minute to re-read it, and if it’s got some heat to it – leave it, walk away, get a glass of water and come back and verify that it’s the message you want to share.