British airline easyJet hit headlines last month when an airport worker punched one of its passengers - who was holding a baby at the time - in Nice airport in France.
The flight was delayed for 11 hours. It is important to note that the airport employee didn't actually work for easyJet. However, that didn't stop the airline's name being dragged through the mud.
The top stories shown on Google at the time were not particularly favourable towards easyJet:
Furthermore, one of the negative news stories found its way on to page one:
According to Google Keyword Planner, the brand term 'easyJet' gets approximately 11,100,000 searches per month. Based on the position of this negative page one search result - and our own research into the click-through rate of the negative link based on its position - 9.3% of page one traffic would have been clicking through to a negative result at the time of the incident. That's approximately 946,619 people per month!
It just goes to show: sometimes, your online reputation will be taken out of your control. Therefore, it's best to always be prepared.
