1. I think it’s also important to look at variations for what people may call your brand – especially important with companies with a number in their name or potential mis-spellings. ie. My surname “Killick” competes with an investment house “Killik” when searched for – fair play to them I say.

2. I have an article on my Blog (now “noindex”ed) about a telecoms firm who kept aggressively selling to me. For the search term of their company name “4Com” I was number three in Google for about a year – just under their corporate website. They did very little to engage me in a constructive manner in how to get it removed or turn that around.

Ultimately, like you say, you can’t control anything, but you can engage and get in the game.