A BrokerCheck disclosure, a client complaint or a piece of adverse press can outrank your own firm on a search for your own name. The rules that govern how you are allowed to respond are part of why it stays there. We work inside them.
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100% ConfidentialFinancial services reputation management is the work of changing what a prospective client, a referral partner or a recruiter finds when they search your firm or your advisors by name. For a registered investment adviser, an independent broker-dealer or an advisory practice, that result set usually includes at least one thing you did not publish and cannot delete: a BrokerCheck or IAPD record, a complaint-board post, a news item about a matter that closed years ago.
What makes this different from ordinary reputation work is that you are not free to answer. FINRA and SEC advertising rules govern what a registered firm may say in public, your compliance officer reviews it before it goes anywhere, and a response that confirms someone was a client can create a second problem on top of the first. Most reputation firms will tell you to reply to the review. That advice was written for restaurants.
So we work the part that can actually move. The record itself is governed by FINRA and the SEC and changes only through their processes. Its search footprint, the aggregators that republish it, and what ranks above it are governed by nobody in particular, and that is where the work is. Where a source has a removal policy, content removal is the first path we try.
Two different things are usually described as "the disclosure," and separating them is the whole job. There is the record, held by a regulator. And there is the record's search footprint: the aggregator sites, advisor directories and arbitration award databases that copied it, plus whatever ranks alongside it on a search for your name.
The record is narrow ground. BrokerCheck publishes what firms and representatives report on Forms U4, U5, U6, BD and BDW, under FINRA Rule 8312.1 The SEC's Investment Adviser Public Disclosure site publishes Form ADV filings, including the Part 2 brochure and the Part 3 relationship summary, along with representative-level registration and disciplinary history.5 Expungement of customer dispute information is possible, but only where an arbitrator finds one of three things: that the information is "factually impossible or clearly erroneous," that the registered person "was not involved," or that the claim is "false."2 FINRA then requires a court order or a court-confirmed arbitration award before anything is removed. An arbitrator's recommendation on its own does not do it. FINRA's own description of the remedy is the fairest summary available: it calls expungement "an extraordinary remedy."
Since 16 October 2023 it has been harder. Straight-in requests go to three arbitrators drawn from a special roster, all three have to agree, and there are filing deadlines: two years after a related arbitration or court case closes, or three years from the date the complaint was first reported in the CRD where there was no such case.3
NetReputation is not a law firm. We do not file expungements and we do not give legal advice. Where a filing is the right path, that is work for your securities counsel, and we coordinate with them rather than around them. What we own is everything the filing does not reach.
That part is larger than most firms expect. A disclosure that has been expunged, withdrawn or resolved at the source frequently keeps circulating, because the sites that copied it are under no obligation to notice. Under Rule 8312, most routine information also drops off BrokerCheck ten years after a registration ends, while final regulatory actions and certain criminal, civil injunction and sales-practice arbitration matters stay.1 Either way, the copies persist on their own schedule.
One limit, stated plainly because you will hear the opposite from somebody. A current, accurate disclosure that reflects a real finding is not going anywhere, and no firm can make it. When removal is unavailable the work becomes suppression, and the honest questions are how long outranking takes and what it costs.
BrokerCheck and IAPD records ranking for your firm name or for an individual adviser.
Advisor directories and award databases that republish disclosure data after the source changes.
Complaint boards and forum threads about matters you are not permitted to discuss publicly.
Coverage of a regulatory matter, a departure or a lawsuit that has since been resolved.
Until 4 November 2022, SEC-registered investment advisers could not use client testimonials in advertising at all. The previous version of Rule 206(4)-1 prohibited it outright. The amended Marketing Rule reversed that and permits testimonials and endorsements, which is why review programs are suddenly being sold to advisory firms that were not allowed to run them three years ago.4
The permission came with conditions, and the conditions are where these programs fail. An advertisement has to disclose clearly and prominently whether the person giving the testimonial is a client and whether they were compensated. Material conflicts of interest have to be disclosed. The adviser has to oversee compliance. A written agreement is required with compensated promoters, except for affiliates and for de minimis compensation of $1,000 or less over the preceding twelve months. Certain disqualified persons cannot act as compensated promoters at all. The SEC's examination staff has published observations on how advisers are handling testimonials, endorsements and third-party ratings in practice.4
A review-generation program that ignores any of this does not reach the public. It reaches your compliance officer, who stops it. We build the program to the conditions first, route every piece of copy through your compliance review before it goes out, and keep the records that review depends on.
One scope note that matters: broker-dealers sit under FINRA's communications rules rather than the Marketing Rule, and dually registered firms answer to both. Your compliance department will tell you which regime governs which part of your business, and the program is built to whichever answer you give us.
The platforms that carry weight in this sector are not the ones that matter in retail. We monitor and manage Google Business Profile, BBB, Trustpilot and LinkedIn alongside WealthManagement.com, NerdWallet and Investopedia, and we tell you which two or three actually hold your rating before any work starts. The mechanics of running that program are covered on our business review management page.
Firm-level results, principal and adviser names, and the Form ADV record clients read first.
Firm and representative disclosures, recruiting visibility, and the BrokerCheck footprint on aggregator sites.
Partner-level reputation, referral-source diligence, and the coverage that follows a departure or a transaction.
Banks, credit unions and multi-branch institutions have a different problem shape, driven by branch and location data rather than by individual registration records. Our business reputation management work covers that.
Everything in the sections above is defensive. This is the other half, and for most firms it is the half that pays for the engagement. The assets that outrank a disclosure are the same assets that win a referral: a firm site that answers the questions a prospect actually types, named-partner profiles that establish who is behind the advice, and published thinking that positions the practice as the authority in its niche rather than one of forty local options.
That work compounds. A practice with a strong published presence attracts the high-net-worth and institutional prospects it wants to be found by, converts referral traffic that would otherwise stall at a search result, and keeps a durable buffer above anything that surfaces later. Search visibility built before a problem appears is considerably cheaper than search visibility built after one.
We catalogue every result for your firm name and for each named adviser, including the aggregator copies.
We sort what is governed by a regulator from what is governed by a website's own posted policy.
Removal requests where a policy applies, ranked assets where none does, and your counsel handles any filing.
Republication is normal in this sector, so the result set is monitored and re-worked as copies reappear.
Our team typically sees the first measurable movement in 60 to 90 days, and deeply established results take 6 to 12 months. The variables are the same four every time: who hosts the content, which jurisdiction governs it, what that site's own policy permits, and whether there is a factual basis to challenge it. We tell you which of those apply to your specific results during the free analysis, rather than putting a number on a web page.
We work with registered firms and advisory practices on the results their clients, recruits and referral partners actually see.
The record on BrokerCheck and the copies of it in search are two separate problems. The record changes only through FINRA's own process. The copies, on aggregator sites and advisor directories, can often be addressed under those sites' own policies, and what ranks above them can be changed through content. That second half is what most firms never work, and it is usually what a prospect actually sees.
Sometimes, on narrow grounds. An arbitrator has to find that the information is factually impossible or clearly erroneous, that the registered person was not involved, or that the claim is false. FINRA then requires a court order or a court-confirmed arbitration award before the record changes, and since October 2023 three arbitrators from a special roster must agree unanimously. FINRA describes expungement as an extraordinary remedy, and that is the right expectation to hold.
No. NetReputation is not a law firm, does not file expungements and does not provide legal advice. Where a filing is the right route, your securities counsel runs it and we coordinate with them. Our work is the search footprint: the republished copies, the directories, and the assets that rank around your name. Firms often run both at once, because they solve different halves.
Every piece of copy we produce for a registered firm goes through your compliance review before it is published, and we build to your policies rather than asking for an exception to them. We do not make performance claims, do not publish anything implying a guaranteed outcome, and do not run review programs that skip the disclosure conditions the Marketing Rule requires.
Our team typically sees the first measurable movement in 60 to 90 days, and deeply established results take 6 to 12 months. What determines it is who hosts the content, which jurisdiction governs it, what that site's policy permits, and whether there is a factual basis to challenge it. We give you a realistic read on your specific results during the free analysis rather than a number on a web page.
Yes, and the two engagements look different. An individual adviser is usually dealing with their own name, a disclosure and a handful of directory profiles. A firm is dealing with the firm name plus every registered person under it, which is a wider map and a longer program. Most of our work in this sector is at the firm level, where one set of assets does work for several names at once.
Google Business Profile, BBB, Trustpilot and LinkedIn carry the general weight, and for wealth management and investment advisory, WealthManagement.com, NerdWallet and Investopedia matter more than their traffic suggests, because that is where a prospect who is already comparing advisers tends to land. For most clients two or three platforms hold almost all of it, and we identify yours before starting.
Then we say so, and the engagement becomes suppression rather than removal. A current, accurate disclosure reflecting a real finding stays where it is. What changes is how far down the page it sits, how much of the result set you control around it, and what a prospect reads first. That is a maintained program rather than a finished project, and we will tell you at the analysis stage if it is not worth running.
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