How long should a reputation recovery program last?

Recovery programs have two phases and the transition between them is what determines whether the recovery is durable. Active intervention runs six to eighteen months depending on severity and trajectory, with sustained content production, source-level work, and weekly strategy. The transition to maintenance happens when the trajectory has stabilized – the SERP composition is holding, the AI narrative across the engines is current and accurate, the Wikipedia article is reflecting current reality, and the entity layer is stable. Maintenance runs indefinitely for high-profile clients because the engines are continuously updating and the picture can erode without sustained work. Maintenance is dramatically less intensive than active intervention – typically a small fraction of the resource – but it is not zero. Programs that exit completely after the trajectory stabilizes routinely see resurfacing within twelve to twenty-four months. The clients who maintain consistently do not.