Vox Populi Registry has gotten a lot of attention for its recent national outdoor and digital ad campaign. That’ll happen when you light up Times Square in New York City encouraging all to “Tell the World What .Sucks”
But more than an obvious and sturdy platform for criticism, dotSucks can also deliver two very real business advantages to those companies willing to put the time, energy and interest into a branded site.
First, if a company embraces a www.company.sucks site, it can generate real search engine optimization benefits. It can corral a fair bit of criticism that is now indiscriminately placed across the internet, often in places difficult to address, correct or refute.
Think of every time a Google search is done for “fill-in-the-blank” company + “fraud” or “criticism” or whatever charge is being bandied about at the moment on the internet. The results are a hodgepodge of those distributed and difficult-to-correct places. But the development of a current and robust .sucks site ensures that it, not the range of rogue sites, will rise in search results. The flotsam and jetsam will sink. This is a real SEO advantage.
For companies whose management decisions are routinely questioned (www.yahoo.sucks?) or get caught off-shore at a time of patriotic fervor (www.apple.sucks?) or become a symbol of using procedures some see as loopholes (www.pfizer.sucks?), the platform is a way to more immediately, comprehensively and definitively respond. And the links that grow on such a go-to site for others looking to vent give it another search engine advantage.
Second, companies are not only subject to rumors and second-guessing. Every company, especially the best known, may stub their toe or worse, like getting caught coloring outside the lines. Think Volkswagen and emissions, think FIFA and kick-backs, think Chipotle and e.coli, think Apple and suicides among employees of its Chinese manufacturing partners.
At the moment of the event, there is a natural rush to the web in general and to the companies’ sites in particular to find out more. The result may be akin to a self-inflicted distributed denial of service attack. A .sucks site mitigates that.
As the web gets wider and deeper, any approach that can make a company more visible and increase consumer contact has got to be a good thing. If, at the same time, it delivers on business benefits, it becomes an even better thing.
