We track every engagement through IMPACT™ against the goals defined at kickoff, and we report progress monthly with the underlying data available. The realistic timing depends on three variables: the strength of the existing footprint (a brand with no Wikipedia article and no Knowledge Panel has more upside but also more work), the competitiveness of the queries (a common name in finance is more crowded than a unique pharmaceutical brand), and the presence and authority of any hostile content. For a typical corporate or executive program with no major adversarial content, meaningful movement on priority queries lands in the 3-6 month window. Contested SERPs with high-authority negative coverage take 6-12 months, sometimes more. We are explicit about expected pace at the start of every engagement because misaligned timing expectations are the single most common source of friction in this work.

Most senior comms leaders we talk to do not actually need to define their own scope before engaging. The diagnostic is designed for exactly this case. We run the full audit – IMPACT™ across the branded SERP, AIQ™ across the eight AI engines, Wikipedia and Knowledge Panel review, entity audit, peer comparison – and produce a written assessment that reveals what is actually happening and what would have the most leverage. Most clients come out of the diagnostic with a clearer picture of their reputation landscape than they had going in, and a defensible internal case for which interventions to prioritize. The diagnostic is a fixed-fee project and stands on its own; many engagements grow out of it but there is no obligation to continue. Starting with a diagnostic is the closest thing to a free trial in this category, and it usually saves time on both sides.

Every Five Blocks engagement opens the same way. The first step is a discovery call where we listen to what the client is trying to achieve, what has happened so far, and what success looks like. We do not pitch on that call. The second step is a diagnostic assessment: we use IMPACT™ and AIQ™ to map the current digital landscape – the branded SERP, Wikipedia status, Knowledge Panel state, AI narrative across the eight engines we track, source layer, and competitive position against named peers. The diagnostic reveals the work that actually needs doing, which is rarely what the client expected at the outset. The third step is a written proposal with a defined scope, timeline, pricing, and a Letter of Engagement. Work begins after the Letter is signed. The full opening process typically runs two to four weeks depending on diagnostic depth.

Engagements are scoped in good faith at the start, but the situation evolves and programs evolve with it. We scale up regularly when a quiet engagement turns active (a news cycle hits, a transaction is announced, AI engine narrative shifts), and we scale down when the structural work has been done and the client moves into maintenance mode. Scope changes are documented as addenda to the Letter of Engagement and take effect at the start of the following billing month. The base engagement provides predictable infrastructure; the addenda provide flexibility when the situation calls for more or less. Both sides benefit from the cleanliness of doing it in writing rather than informally.

Engagements are structured as monthly retainers with a fixed scope, billed in advance against the Letter of Engagement. Standard terms are 6 or 12 months because durable reputation work runs on Google’s timeline rather than on a 30-day cycle, and shorter terms tend to produce frustration rather than results. The Letter of Engagement defines the program scope, deliverables, KPIs, reporting cadence, payment terms, and standard contractual provisions including confidentiality. Modifications to scope mid-engagement are documented in addenda. Onboarding typically includes a kickoff call, weekly check-ins for the first month, then biweekly or monthly cadence depending on the engagement.

The standard components of an engagement: an upfront diagnostic that establishes the baseline; a written strategy that prioritizes interventions and sets twelve-month goals; content production across owned properties and earned channels; entity optimization including Wikidata, schema markup, sameAs links, and Knowledge Panel work; Wikipedia engagement where the client has or should have an article, conducted under disclosed COI rules; AI narrative work using AIQ™ to identify source-level interventions across the eight engines we track; continuous monitoring through IMPACT™, AIQ, and WikiAlerts™; and a monthly written report tying progress back to the agreed objectives with the underlying data available. The mix and emphasis vary by client and category, but those components are the spine of the work.

Online reputation management is the discipline of shaping how a brand, executive, or organization appears across the digital layers where decisions get made about them: Google search, the AI answer engines (ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Copilot, Google AI Overviews), Wikipedia, the Knowledge Graph, and the press, structured-data, and third-party sources those engines synthesize from. The discipline is structural rather than promotional. It is not about generating positive content; it is about ensuring the authoritative sources, entity signals, and content infrastructure that engines weight most heavily reflect the company or person accurately. Done well, it is largely invisible: stakeholders simply find what they need to find when they search.

Short-term diagnostic engagements are common, especially when the client wants a clear picture of the current reputation landscape before committing to a multi-month program. A typical diagnostic includes a full IMPACT™ audit of the branded SERP and priority keywords, an AIQ™ snapshot of how the eight AI engines describe the brand and named peers, a Wikipedia and Knowledge Panel review, an entity and schema audit of owned properties, and a written assessment with prioritized recommendations. Diagnostics are typically priced as a fixed-fee project and run two to four weeks. Many clients use the diagnostic to brief their board, validate scope internally, or compare proposals from multiple firms. The diagnostic stands on its own; many programs grow out of it but the engagement does not require continuing.

The phrase distinguishes Five Blocks’s approach from two adjacent categories. Tactical SEO firms execute keyword and link work without a unifying view of the reputation layer; their work is real but bounded. Boutique PR firms write narrative and place stories without the technical apparatus to influence the source layer that AI engines actually weight. Intelligent reputation management integrates both: the data layer (IMPACT™ for search, AIQ™ for AI, WikiAlerts™ for Wikipedia, GeoSearch for geographic variation), the methodology (Track / Analyze / Impact), and the editorial expertise (Wikipedia editing under disclosed COI, structured-data fluency, multi-engine AI source work). The result is durable reputation infrastructure rather than month-to-month fixes. It is the difference between adding rooms to a house and reinforcing the foundation.

Brand SEO and ORM share the same technical foundation but answer different questions. Brand SEO asks: how do we rank higher and convert more traffic on the keywords that drive sales. ORM asks: when an investor, journalist, regulator, customer, or candidate searches the brand or executive’s name, what do they actually see, and is it accurate, authoritative, and complete. The ORM question forces work that SEO rarely touches: Wikipedia and Wikidata entity work, source-level remediation of inaccurate articles, Knowledge Panel optimization, AI engine narrative tracking, and the full composition of the branded SERP including news, People Also Ask, and AI Overviews. ORM is measured against the entire results page, not against a keyword position.