Search Engine Reputation Management (SERM) may just be a nicely packaged sales term to re-brand SEO as something more palatable for those not willing to spend money on the "vague" idea of SEO. Nonetheless, it has a specific goal to improve the reputation of someone or something in the search results, often achieved by a process of utilizing many domains to push down the negative results.

I've typically viewed the process of SERM (assuming the client is trying to improve the reputation of their name) as setting up profiles on various social networks, creating a blog surrounding an individual, submitting articles to various sites, linking all of the profiles and sites together, and then using the traditional techniques of SEO to build links & traffic.

I had a thought though...

Would it be better to compete with myself?

Instead of creating one network for my client, would it be better to create two or more networks that compete with each other, avoiding linking the sites together and, if possible, avoiding the overlapping of their content category (e.g., personal, professional, philanthropy, etc.)?

Basically, what I'm talking about is creating an online presence for John Doe and then creating another online presence for...John Doe! In reality, all of the content is about the same John Doe, but in Google's eyes  it's two different people because the sites aren't linking between each other and the content is about different aspects of Mr. Doe's life.

The single network of sites is the typical method utilized. There is essentially one hub for the client and everything stems from there. The multiple networks of sites is an example of using two or more networks competing for the same keyword, competing with each other for the top search results.

This method of linking between sites accounts for Google diversifying results. The John Doe I'm trying to promote in the search engines isn't the only important John Doe in the world, so Google has to account for other John Does. By diversifying the results the consequence is that the entire network of one individual is limited in what it can achieve in search results, thus the need to create multiple personas of networks for one individual.

Now this is just a theory of mine and is not fully tested, so I'm curious about whether other SEOs have attempted this method and with what success. The obvious pitfall in this method is creating more work for yourself. Rather than focusing all of your effort on one network, you have to double your effort, but it may be worth it in the end!