--- title: "What do Google and AI say when someone searches our name?" url: https://marketingsignals.com/insights/what-google-and-ai-say-when-someone-searches-our-name type: Article date: 2026-11-05 author: "Gareth Hoyle" --- # What Do Google and AI Say When Someone Searches Our Name? A board-level question: what Google and AI assistants show for your company name, why negative results are rarely removed and how positive content pushes them down. ## Key takeaways - What a buyer, investor or candidate finds on page one of Google and in AI answers is your reputation at the point of decision, and few businesses have one person who owns it. - Very few searchers look beyond the first page, and AI summaries mean many never click through at all. - Google removes results only in narrow cases, the right to be forgotten covers individuals rather than companies, and fake reviews are banned in the UK. - The approach that works in every case is promoting positive content, existing and new, on your own site and on third-party sites, until it outranks the negative. - Report it quarterly: the mix of page-one results, the position of each negative result, reviews and how accurately AI assistants describe you. Before a buyer signs, an investor commits or a senior candidate accepts an offer, they search your name. What they find on the first page of Google, and increasingly in the AI answer above it, is your reputation at the moment it matters most. Most boards have never looked at it on purpose. It is a board question because the risk is commercial and the ownership is usually missing. Marketing runs the website, communications handles the press, HR looks after employer reviews and customer service deals with complaints. Nobody owns the first page as a whole. This article sets out what a board should ask about its reputation in search, why removing negative results is rarely possible, and how promoting positive content pushes the negative down in Google and in AI answers. ## Why page one matters more than it used to People rarely look past the first page. In a [Backlinko study of 1,801 Google search sessions](https://backlinko.com/google-user-behavior), published in 2020, 0.44% of searchers went on to the second page of results. For a search on your company name, the first page is close to the whole picture. AI answers now sit above that page, or replace it. Google told investors in July 2025 that [AI Overviews had more than two billion monthly users](https://techcrunch.com/2025/07/23/googles-ai-overviews-have-2b-monthly-users-ai-mode-100m-in-the-us-and-india). [Pew Research Center](https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/07/22/google-users-are-less-likely-to-click-on-links-when-an-ai-summary-appears-in-the-results/) found that users clicked a traditional search result in 8% of visits where an AI summary appeared, against 15% where none did. When the summary is the answer, one negative source it draws on can colour the impression without anyone clicking through. The people searching are often the ones with the most at stake: procurement teams checking a supplier, investors in due diligence, journalists researching a story and candidates deciding whether to accept an offer. ## What the board should look at A useful first review covers five things, checked from a browser that is not signed in, so personal search history does not flatter the results: - Page one for the company name, and for the name combined with words people add, such as reviews, complaints, jobs or a product name. - Page one for the names of the chief executive, the founders and other senior leaders. - The review platforms and ratings that appear for those searches, including your Google Business Profile, employer review sites and platforms specific to your industry. - What ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Google's AI Overviews say when asked what the company does, whether it is any good and how it compares with competitors, and which sources they cite. - The positive material the business already has, such as coverage, awards, case studies and partner pages, and where it ranks, if it ranks at all. For each negative result, note where it sits, what kind of site it is on and whether it is still accurate. That list decides what needs to move and how hard it will be. ## Why removal is rarely the answer The first instinct is usually to get the negative result taken down. In most cases that is not possible, and attempts to force it can backfire. - Google removes results in narrow circumstances, such as certain personal information, content that breaks its policies and some legal requests. Its [guidance on defamation](https://support.google.com/legal-help-center/answer/16833565?hl=en) says it is not in a position to judge whether claims are true, that it weighs the public interest, and that reviews of a service by past clients are likely to be of legitimate interest to future clients. A court ruling in your favour is taken into account. A negative but lawful review or article will usually stay. - The right to be forgotten does not help a company. It comes from the 2014 Google Spain ruling, which lets individuals ask search engines to delist results for searches on their name that are inadequate, irrelevant, no longer relevant or excessive, balanced against the public interest. It is a personal data right, so it can sometimes help a director, but not the business itself. - Shortcuts carry their own risk. Writing or commissioning fake reviews is now banned outright in the UK under the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024, and the [Competition and Markets Authority can fine businesses up to 10% of global turnover](https://www.gov.uk/government/news/cma-to-boost-consumer-and-business-confidence-as-new-consumer-protection-regime-comes-into-force) for breaking consumer law. Legal threats against publishers can also turn a small story into a bigger one. That leaves the approach that works in every case: make the positive easier to find than the negative. ## How positive content pushes the negative down Pushing a result down means putting more relevant, more authoritative pages above it. Those pages come from three choices, each with two sides: - Use what exists, and create what is missing. Most businesses have more positive material than page one shows: press coverage, awards, case studies, interviews, partner pages and review profiles sitting on page two or three. Promoting those comes first, because they already exist and often carry authority of their own. Where there are gaps, new content fills them: leadership profiles, news, customer stories, expert commentary and fresh coverage. - Build on your own site and on third-party sites. Your own site matters, but it can only fill part of page one: [since 2019 Google has generally shown no more than two results from the same site](https://www.engadget.com/2019/06/07/google-search-top-results-update/) in its top results. A strong first page needs several strong pages on different sites, such as business and social profiles, directories, partner pages, interviews and earned coverage. - Influence Google and AI answers. Google ranks the pages with the most relevance and authority for your name, so the positive pages need content, structure and links that earn their place. AI assistants describe you from the sources they find and trust, so the facts about you need to be accurate and consistent everywhere, with credible positive sources for them to cite. The same work serves both, but AI answers need checking separately, because a result pushed to page three can still be the source an assistant quotes. ## What to expect, and how to measure it Timescales depend on what needs to move. A forum thread or an old directory page usually moves sooner than an article on a national news site, which has authority of its own. Nobody can guarantee that a specific result will leave page one, and anyone who promises that should be asked how. Progress is measurable, and it belongs in the board pack once a quarter: - How many page-one results for the company name are positive, neutral or negative, compared with last quarter. - The position of each negative result you are working to move. - The average rating and number of recent reviews on the platforms that rank for your name. - For a fixed set of prompts, how often AI assistants describe the business accurately, and which sources they cite. - The same measures for senior leaders' names, where they are in scope. ## Questions to ask your team or agency - What does page one show for our name today, and when did someone last check it properly? - Which results would we not want a buyer, investor or candidate to see, and how strong are the sites they are on? - What do ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity say when asked about us, and which sources do they cite? - Who owns our reputation in search across marketing, communications, HR and customer service? - What positive material do we already have that nobody can find? ## Go deeper Each part of the board question has its own guide: - [How to push negative search results down](https://marketingsignals.com/insights/how-to-push-negative-search-results-down): the suppression method end to end, from audit to timescales. - [Removing negative content from Google](https://marketingsignals.com/insights/removing-negative-content-from-google): every removal route, who can use it and what it achieves. - [How AI assistants decide what to say about your brand](https://marketingsignals.com/insights/how-ai-assistants-decide-what-to-say-about-your-brand): where AI answers come from and how to change them. - [Building positive content that ranks for your brand name](https://marketingsignals.com/insights/positive-content-that-ranks-for-your-brand-name): the pages worth building on your own site and beyond. - [Online reviews and your search reputation](https://marketingsignals.com/insights/online-reviews-and-search-reputation): earning more genuine reviews and responding well, within UK law. ## How we help Our [online reputation management](https://marketingsignals.com/service/online-reputation-management) service is built on one principle: highlight the positive to push down the negative. We promote the positive content you already have, create new content where there are gaps, and place it on your own site and on third-party sites, for Google and for AI answers. It draws on the same SEO and [Digital PR](https://marketingsignals.com/service/digital-pr) work we run for clients' commercial searches. If you want to know what a search for your name shows today, talk to us. ## Frequently asked questions ### Can you remove a negative article from Google? Only in narrow cases. Google removes results for reasons such as certain personal information, content that breaks its policies and some legal requests, and it weighs the public interest when it reviews them. A lawful but negative article or review will usually stay in the results, so the realistic approach is to push it down by promoting positive pages that outrank it. ### Does the right to be forgotten apply to companies? No. The right to be forgotten comes from the 2014 Google Spain ruling and applies to individuals, who can ask search engines to delist results for searches on their name that are inadequate, irrelevant, no longer relevant or excessive. Search engines balance each request against the public interest. A director may be able to use it for personal results, but a company cannot use it for results about the business. ### How long does it take to push down negative search results? It depends on the strength of the result you want to move and the positive pages available to replace it. Weak pages such as old forum threads or directory listings usually move sooner than articles on national news sites. A reputation audit should set out realistic expectations for each result before any work starts. ### Can you change what ChatGPT says about a company? Not directly, but you can change the sources it draws on. AI assistants describe a business from the pages they find and trust, so correcting outdated facts at source, making company information consistent across your site and profiles, and earning credible positive coverage gives them better material to use. Track a fixed set of prompts over time to see how the answers change. ### Is it legal to post reviews to improve a company's rating? Asking genuine customers to leave honest reviews is fine. Writing, buying or commissioning fake reviews is banned in the UK under the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024, and the Competition and Markets Authority can fine businesses up to 10% of global turnover for breaking consumer law. ## Sources - [Backlinko: How people use Google Search, a study of 1,801 search sessions (2020, updated 2025)](https://backlinko.com/google-user-behavior) - [TechCrunch: Google's AI Overviews have 2B monthly users (23 July 2025)](https://techcrunch.com/2025/07/23/googles-ai-overviews-have-2b-monthly-users-ai-mode-100m-in-the-us-and-india) - [Pew Research Center: Google users are less likely to click on links when an AI summary appears in the results (22 July 2025)](https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/07/22/google-users-are-less-likely-to-click-on-links-when-an-ai-summary-appears-in-the-results/) - [Google Legal Help: Defamation overview](https://support.google.com/legal-help-center/answer/16833565?hl=en) - [Engadget: Google Search won't show more than two top results from the same site (7 June 2019)](https://www.engadget.com/2019/06/07/google-search-top-results-update/) - [AGCC: Forget me not, removing unwanted content from search engine results](https://www.agcc.co.uk/blog-article/forget-me-not-removing-unwanted-content-from-search-engine-results) - [GOV.UK: CMA to boost consumer and business confidence as new consumer protection regime comes into force (7 April 2025)](https://www.gov.uk/government/news/cma-to-boost-consumer-and-business-confidence-as-new-consumer-protection-regime-comes-into-force) - [CMA: Fake reviews guidance (CMA208)](https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/67eeb64fe9c76fa33048c790/CMA208_-_Fake_reviews_guidance.pdf) Visibility Playbooks ## Related Playbooks More Insights ## More articles we think you’ll like