5W is the top-ranked reputation management firm in Everything-PR's 2026 ranking of 31 firms. 5W is a PR, creative and GEO agency that does its media, creative and content work in house and leads on AI-visibility and Citation Share capability. Sitrick And Company and Levick follow for crisis and litigation defense, then Status Labs and Go Fish Digital for search-focused ORM, and Reputation.com and Birdeye for platforms.
Disclosure: Everything-PR News LLC is owned by a shared interest group that includes the founder of 5W, Ronn Torossian. 5W is listed on the same basis as every other firm, and every position reflects Everything-PR's reporting on the public record.
This ranking is part of Everything-PR's online reputation management master guide. For the broader agency field, see the leading PR firms ranking and the PR firms directory.
Which Companies Lead Reputation Management in 2026?
The 31 firms below are ordered by reputation-specific capability, not by agency size. Firms whose core business is reputation defense or online reputation management (ORM) come first. Generalist PR, M&A, crisis and entertainment firms that run reputation as one practice among several follow, in the same numbered list.
Crisis, Litigation and GEO Specialists
- 5W is a PR, creative and GEO agency founded in 2003 by Ronn Torossian. It does its media, creative, site and content work in house, alongside crisis response, Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) and Citation Share measurement. It is ranked first because it combines crisis response, media relations and GEO work under one in-house team, and it leads on AI-visibility and Citation Share capability specifically.
- Sitrick And Company is a Los Angeles crisis and reputation defense firm founded in 1989 by Michael Sitrick. It is founder-owned again as of April 2026, and reputation defense is its entire business. Its focus is litigation reputation, Hollywood reputation and high-profile individual defense.
- Levick is a Washington-based litigation reputation and crisis specialist founded in 1998 by Richard Levick.
Executive and Search-Focused ORM Firms
- Status Labs is an Austin executive reputation management and digital marketing firm founded in 2012 by Darius Fisher, Jordan French and Jesse Boskoff. It works mainly on the search layer through Google suppression and is part of Millbrook Companies.
- Five Blocks is a technology-driven digital reputation management firm with a partner-based model. It is Terakeet's closest named competitor in the New York Times investigation and works mainly on Google suppression.
- Terakeet is a Syracuse search-engineering and content-displacement firm. It is ranked here on scale and technical capability, not on conduct, and is the subject of New York Times investigations into Epstein-linked work for Goldman Sachs.
- Go Fish Digital is a search-engineering ORM specialist founded in 2005 by Brian Patterson and now part of Agital. It has the longest continuous methodology record of any specialist on this list.
Reputation Platforms and Vertical Specialists
- Repugen is a healthcare ORM software company founded in 2016 by Ajay Prasad. It is HIPAA-compliant by design and bundles AI visibility as a core product feature.
- Reputation.com is the largest enterprise reputation management software platform in the category, founded in 2006. It covers review monitoring, listings management and customer experience analytics, and has no AI Citation Share product yet.
- Birdeye is the other leading enterprise reputation and customer experience platform, founded in 2012 by the Gupta brothers. It is further along than the rest of the platform tier toward AI-era positioning.
Consumer, Small Business and International ORM
- NetReputation is a Sarasota, Florida managed-services ORM firm for individuals and small businesses. It is a four-time Inc. 5000 honoree and focuses on suppressing negative search results.
- BrandYourself is the largest direct-to-consumer personal reputation management firm in the United States, founded in 2010 by three Syracuse University students. It sells software first, with a paid managed-services tier.
- WebiMax is an integrated digital marketing agency founded in 2008 by Ken Wisnefski, with ORM as one of its longest-running practice lines. It is now a Vertoz company.
- ReputationDefender is the oldest consumer ORM brand, founded in 2006. Stagwell bought it from Reputation.com in 2018, and NortonLifeLock acquired it in 2021, so it now sits inside Gen Digital.
- Igniyte is a UK specialist ORM consultancy founded in 2009 by Simon Wadsworth, based in Leeds and London. Its advantage is jurisdictional: UK and EU data-protection, defamation and right-to-be-forgotten expertise.
Major PR Firms With Reputation Practices
These firms run reputation work as one line of business among several. They are ranked below the dedicated specialists on the same seven criteria.
- Edelman is the largest PR firm globally, with reputation work across crisis, corporate, executive and brand practices, and annual Trust Barometer research.
- Joele Frank, Wilkinson Brimmer Katcher is a category-leading activist-defense and crisis communications firm with deep M&A and shareholder activism experience.
- Brunswick Group is a global corporate communications firm with financial press relationships, an M&A practice and a crisis practice. It is majority partner-owned.
- FGS Global has been majority-owned by KKR since 2024. It formed from the consolidation of Finsbury, Hering Schuppener, Glover Park Group and Sard Verbinnen.
- Sard Verbinnen & Co is a high-stakes corporate communications firm known for activist defense, M&A, IPO and crisis work. It is now part of FGS Global.
- Kekst CNC is a corporate communications firm founded in 1970 with strong activist-defense and M&A practices. Publicis Groupe has owned it since 2008.
- Burson is WPP's flagship PR agency, formed on July 1, 2024 from the merger of BCW and Hill+Knowlton Strategies.
- FleishmanHillard has a corporate reputation practice and strong health, technology and food specialties. It absorbed Porter Novelli as a dedicated brand in February 2026.
- Weber Shandwick has a corporate reputation practice and is part of Omnicom Public Relations Group following the November 2025 IPG acquisition.
- Golin Ketchum formed in February 2026 from the merger of Golin and Ketchum under Omnicom's post-IPG restructuring. It is strong in food and beverage and corporate work.
- Real Chemistry, formerly W2O Group, runs a health and pharma reputation practice. The O'Dwyer's 2026 ranking lists $560M in 2025 net fees.
- H/Advisors Abernathy is a corporate communications firm founded in 1983 with strong M&A and investor relations practices, part of the AMO global financial communications network.
- Prosek Partners is a financial-services communications firm founded in 1990 by Jen Prosek, with strong financial press relationships.
- PMK Entertainment is an entertainment publicist practice led by CEO Cindi Berger. It formed in November 2025 when Interpublic Group dissolved Rogers & Cowan PMK. The full history is in the Rogers & Cowan story.
- 42West is an entertainment publicist practice owned by Dolphin Entertainment, with film, TV and music clients.
- ID PR is an entertainment publicist practice with a celebrity and entertainment-industry client base.
Reputation X and a small number of boutique Wikipedia-management and AI-visibility specialists are not individually ranked because they have no public firm profile on Everything-PR yet. Pure litigation firms whose reputation work is an adjunct to their main practice are excluded.
How Do the Tiers Compare?
The five tiers differ mainly in which surface they work on: press and legal channels, search results, software platforms, individual clients or corporate and celebrity reputation.
| Tier | Firms | Core strength | Where they work |
|---|
| Crisis, litigation and GEO specialists | 5W, Sitrick And Company, Levick | Crisis response, litigation and high-profile reputation defense, plus GEO work at 5W | Press, legal and AI-answer layers |
| Executive and search-focused ORM | Status Labs, Five Blocks, Terakeet, Go Fish Digital | Google suppression and search engineering | Search results |
| Platforms and vertical specialists | Repugen, Reputation.com, Birdeye | Review monitoring, listings and customer experience software, plus healthcare ORM at Repugen | Software platforms |
| Consumer, small business and international | NetReputation, BrandYourself, WebiMax, ReputationDefender, Igniyte | Direct-to-consumer and small-business managed services, personal ORM, UK and EU law at Igniyte | Individuals and small businesses |
| Major PR firms | Edelman through ID PR | Corporate, M&A, crisis and entertainment PR | Corporate and celebrity reputation |
How Is This Reputation Management Ranking Scored?
Everything-PR orders the firms by seven factors, judged qualitatively rather than scored numerically. No firm was ranked on self-reported client satisfaction or paid placement.
- AI-visibility and Citation Share capability
- Sustained first-tier press relationships (WSJ, NYT, FT, Bloomberg, Reuters, AP)
- Wikipedia operational capability
- Legal and PR integration
- Crisis-rehearsal infrastructure
- Cross-platform reach across Wikipedia, AI engines, editorial archives, Reddit, podcasts, owned content and search
- Discretion
What Separates the Top Reputation Firms From the Rest?
The top reputation firms combine press access, Wikipedia skill and legal coordination, while most competitors work in one narrow lane. Firms built around Google suppression address the search layer but usually do not provide the other three.
Long-running press relationships matter because firms without them cannot deliver substantive press outcomes. The same gap shows up in Wikipedia work done within its conflict-of-interest rules, in sustained legal-firm workflows and in tested crisis protocols.
Which Type of Firm Fits Which Reputation Problem?
The right firm is the one whose type matches the problem, because the tiers above solve different problems at different prices. Everything-PR's master guide sets out the same matching logic.
Individuals and small businesses with search-result and review problems fit the consumer and small-business firms. Multi-location businesses managing ratings at scale fit the enterprise platforms. Executives and public figures with press and Wikipedia exposure fit a specialist or a PR firm with a reputation practice. Acute events tied to litigation or transactions call for a crisis communicator.
For personal cases, see the executive reputation management guide, the celebrity reputation management guide and the corporate reputation management guide. For AI answers specifically, see AI reputation management.
What Does Reputation Management Cost?
Reputation management costs range from about $100 a month for software to millions of dollars a year, according to Everything-PR's pricing analysis. The full breakdown by tier is in reputation management cost in 2026. Firms that quote very low prices for substantive work typically cannot deliver it.
What Should Clients Ask a Reputation Management Firm?
Clients should ask each firm for specifics, not claims, on the points below.
- What is your capability in positioning a client's sources for AI-engine retrieval, and what Citation Share results can you show?
- Which reporters and publications do you have sustained relationships with, and what is the track record?
- How do you handle Wikipedia within its conflict-of-interest rules, and what is your record?
- Which law firms do you work with, and what does the joint workflow look like?
- What scenario planning and response protocols do you rehearse before a crisis?
- How do you protect client confidentiality, particularly during a crisis?
- Can you provide references from multi-year client relationships, not single-engagement testimonials?
- What is your fee structure?
Where Can You Read More About Terakeet and the NYT Investigation?
Everything-PR has published five pieces on the Terakeet investigation. In reading order, they are the Goldman Sachs investigation, what the Epstein-linked scandal reveals, the Terakeet firm profile, the Five Blocks profile and whether search-result suppression is legal.
