How long until the reputational damage subsides?

Reputational damage does not subside on a clock. It subsides as the authoritative content surrounding it accumulates, as freshness signals on the negative article decay, as source-level corrections take effect, and as the entity layer reasserts the correct picture across Google and AI engines. The variables that govern timing: how authoritative the negative source is (a Wall Street Journal article from this month is harder to displace than a regional blog from 2019), how factually contestable the content is (clear inaccuracies are easier to address than unflattering but accurate coverage), and how sustained the remediation work is. Most engagements show measurable improvement within 6-12 months. Severe cases involving high-authority outlets and ongoing news cycles take longer. Programs that produce results have one thing in common: they were structured from the start to run long enough for the work to compound.