Most Indian business owners I speak with use the terms "ORM" and "reputation management" interchangeably. They are not the same thing, and confusing them is leading businesses to buy the wrong solutions for their actual problems.
What is Reputation Management?
Traditional reputation management — the kind practised by PR agencies for decades — is about managing public perception across all channels: print media, broadcast, events, spokesperson training, crisis communications, and stakeholder relations. It is broad, offline, and primarily about proactive narrative control. A PR agency builds your reputation by getting positive stories published, managing your media relationships, and coaching your leadership on how to communicate effectively.
What is ORM (Online Reputation Management)?
ORM is specifically about what appears when someone searches for your name or business online. It is about controlling the first page of Google results for your brand, managing review platforms, monitoring social media mentions, and ensuring that the digital footprint your business leaves is accurate, positive, and authoritative. ORM operates in the specific and increasingly critical space of search engine results pages.
The Three Types of ORM Problems
1. Negative but Accurate Content
Genuine negative reviews from real customers, accurate news coverage of business difficulties, or factual reporting on regulatory actions. This content cannot be removed legally — it represents truthful information. The only option is suppression: creating enough positive, authoritative content about your brand that the negative content is displaced from the first page of results.
2. Negative and Inaccurate (Defamatory) Content
False reviews from competitors, defamatory articles making untrue claims, or social media posts containing fabricated allegations. This content is potentially actionable under defamation law. In India, both civil and criminal defamation remedies exist. As an Advocate practising at the Delhi High Court, I regularly advise on and pursue these remedies on behalf of clients.
3. Outdated or Irrelevant Content
Old news articles about resolved issues, outdated business information, or personal data that no longer accurately represents an individual's circumstances. India's DPDP Act 2023 creates new avenues for addressing some of this content, particularly personal data held without a legitimate ongoing purpose.
Why Most ORM Agencies Get It Wrong
A typical digital ORM agency offers one tool: content suppression. They create positive content (websites, social profiles, press releases, blog articles) and optimise it aggressively to rank above negative results. This works reasonably well for Type 1 problems — genuinely negative but accurate content that cannot be removed.
But for Type 2 problems — defamatory content — suppression alone is inadequate. The false content remains online; it is merely moved off the first page. For a business executive facing serious false allegations that could affect their career, or a doctor facing fabricated malpractice claims, pushing the content to page three is not good enough. It needs to be removed.
This is where Media Dynox's unique capability comes in. Subodh Bajpai's active legal practice enables us to assess the legal actionability of defamatory content, issue formal legal notices, pursue platform removal requests backed by legal authority, and where necessary, initiate court proceedings. This is not capability that most digital agencies can offer.
The DPDP Act 2023: A New ORM Tool
India's Digital Personal Data Protection Act 2023 is the most significant data privacy legislation India has enacted. Among its provisions are rights to data correction and, under specific circumstances, data erasure. For ORM purposes, the DPDP Act creates new grounds for requesting removal of personal information from websites that hold it without valid ongoing justification.
This is particularly relevant for individuals who are affected by old news articles, outdated regulatory filings, or historical data that continues to surface in search results. The DPDP Act's right to erasure provisions — when they take full effect — will provide a formal legal mechanism for addressing this category of ORM problem. Media Dynox is already preparing frameworks to leverage these provisions on behalf of clients.
The Media Dynox ORM Advantage
Media Dynox is the only digital agency in India where the founder actively practises law at the Delhi High Court. This means our ORM engagements begin with a proper legal assessment of the content at issue — determining whether legal removal is viable before defaulting to suppression. For businesses facing serious reputation damage, this distinction can be the difference between a partial fix and a complete solution.