Our Story, Approach and Ethics
Where Five Blocks came from, why the work matters, what we do and how, and the principles behind it.
The same story, told three ways.
When someone looks you up, Google, Wikipedia and AI answers are where they form a first impression, and increasingly they are the same story told three ways.
We have done this work since 2003. Our team of 60+ works from New York and Jerusalem, usually alongside a client’s communications, PR, legal and digital teams. Every program runs on daily data from our own platforms, so we can show what people see about you today, how it compares with your peers, and what changed after the work.
Founded in 2003 by Sam Michelson, we started in search and Wikipedia and now cover AI answers as well. See our latest research →
Meet the leadership team →Why it matters, what we do, and how.
Everyone searches. More and more, they ask AI.
Customers, investors, journalists, recruits and regulators all start the same way: they search. More and more of them now ask an AI engine instead, and get a single confident paragraph rather than ten blue links.
Those answers are built from sources. In our study of the Fortune 100, AI engines cited the company’s own website in 82% of answers and Wikipedia in 56%. 43% of the dated serious negatives they raised were about events from 2020 or earlier. What is published, where, and how clearly, decides what gets repeated.
Leaving that to the algorithms means leaving your reputation to whatever happens to rank or be cited. Our job is to make sure the accurate, current story is the easiest one for Google and AI to find.
Build the presence you should have, and defend it.
We plan and build the online presence a company or executive should have, and we defend it when something goes wrong.
- Digital Reputation Management: long-term programs that shape what appears for your name in Google and AI answers.
- Reputation Crisis Management: managing a live crisis online, then rebuilding afterward.
- Entity Optimization: making sure Google and AI understand exactly who you are, and don’t confuse you with someone else.
- Wikipedia Strategy & Management: accurate, fair Wikipedia entries, done transparently and within Wikipedia’s rules.
- Digital Reputation Audit: a clear picture of what Google, Wikipedia and AI say about you today, against your peers.
Programs cover companies, their executives, and specific issues such as an employer brand, ESG, a transaction or a legal matter.
Every program follows the same four steps.
- 01MeasureWe track your search results and AI answers every day, alongside the peers you are compared with.
- 02DiagnoseWe find the sources that drive each result and each answer, and why a particular article will not move.
- 03PlanWith your communications team, we decide what should be found: your own sites and profiles, earned media, Wikipedia, video, images and structured data.
- 04Build and reportWe create and strengthen that content, then report on what changed in Google and in AI answers.
Three interests compete in search and in AI: the searcher wants accurate information, the platform wants to satisfy the searcher, and you want your story told. Lasting results come from serving all three, so we do not use tricks, fake content or loopholes that the next algorithm update will undo.
See the methodology in depth →We built our own platforms.
We built our own platforms because the data we needed didn’t exist.
- AIQ captures every answer and cited source from eight AI engines daily, breaks each answer into points, flags the negative ones, and shows how you compare with peers.
- IMPACT™ tracks Google, Bing, Baidu and SO360 results daily for more than 100,000 brands and executives, and shows which results move, which stay stuck, and why.
- WikiAlerts™ tells you the moment a Wikipedia page you care about is edited.
- GeoSearch™ shows Google results as they appear somewhere else in the world.
The same data powers our public research. This November we are sharing more research than ever before, more than 10 new studies, starting with how AI describes the Fortune 100 (24,675 answers from eight engines). If there is research you are doing, or would like to do together with us, we would love to hear from you.
Read the research →Helping people and companies put their best foot forward, accurately.
We developed our ethics framework together with an external business ethics organization, and we hold ourselves to it.
We don’t use fake reviews, spam, sock puppets or other tactics that mislead searchers or platforms.
We don’t take on work whose outcome could hurt someone, and we won’t promote negative content about a client’s competitors.
On Wikipedia we work openly and within its rules.
Before we take on any possibly contentious engagement, our ethics committee meets to discuss the case: who the client is, what they are asking for, and who could be affected. If the work doesn’t meet our standards, we turn it down.
More than two decades of practice, built on data and analysis.
Founded in 2003 by Sam Michelson, we are a digital reputation management firm with offices in Jerusalem and New York. Our mission: make sure what people find about you online is accurate, current and fair. We work with premium clients who never leave business choices to chance.
Our 60+ results-oriented professionals span technology, communications, marketing, psychology, education, and cyber intelligence, many on staff for nearly a decade. We pair that experience with big data and proprietary technology to build effective, holistic, customized strategies. Each client works with an account lead who becomes the interdisciplinary expert on their account. You won’t find our clients’ names here, that discretion is exactly why they trust us.
Your digital narrative, especially as seen via LLMs and search, is the gateway to your reputation. It should be deliberate, capture your essence, and be protected in advance of a crisis.
Five Blocks
Contact us.
Whether you are building reputation in advance, taking stock, or facing something damaging right now, reach a senior specialist directly. For active crises, we respond quickly.
● Confidential by designA senior member of our business development team reads these. We are happy to sign an NDA in advance of your sharing anything sensitive, and we typically respond within one business day.
Members of our team, some of whom you may work with
Held in strict confidence. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.