A reputation score is a single number that captures the overall health of your online presence — how you appear across search engines, data broker sites, social media, news archives, and dark web breach databases. It works the same way a credit score works: one number, derived from dozens of data points, that tells a complete story at a glance.
Vettadex uses a 0–850 scale, modeled deliberately after the FICO credit score range. Everyone already understands what it means when a credit score is 820 versus 480. The same intuition applies here.
How it's calculated
The score is weighted across five categories, each contributing a different percentage of the total:
- Search results (30%) — What appears on Google pages 1–5 when someone searches your name. This carries the most weight because it's what most people see first.
- Data brokers (25%) — How many broker sites list your personal information and what they expose. Address, phone number, relatives, and financial estimates all contribute.
- Social media (20%) — Public content on Instagram, X, TikTok, Reddit, LinkedIn, and other platforms that could be found and used to form a judgment about you.
- News and web (15%) — News articles, forum posts, complaint boards, and public court records that mention your name.
- Professional (10%) — Your presence on professional directories, LinkedIn, company pages, and professional databases.
What the score ranges mean
750–850 (Excellent) — Your online presence is clean and professional. Search results are dominated by content you control. Data broker listings are minimal or removed. No significant negative content.
650–749 (Good) — Generally positive presence with minor issues. Some broker listings may exist. Search results are mostly positive but may include neutral third-party content. No critical findings.
500–649 (Fair) — Mixed online presence. Multiple broker listings exposing personal information. Some social media content that could be viewed negatively. May include older news mentions or forum posts.
300–499 (At Risk) — Significant issues that are actively affecting how you're perceived. High-ranking negative search results, extensive broker data exposure, potentially compromised breach data, or damaging social media content.
0–299 (Critical) — Serious reputation threats requiring immediate action. This range typically involves arrest records or mugshots appearing in search results, criminal records on data broker sites, breach data actively in circulation, or highly visible negative content that ranks on page one.
How scores improve
Scores improve as threats are removed and positive signals strengthen. The most impactful actions, in order of effect:
- Removing arrest records and mugshots from search results
- Delisting from major data broker sites (Spokeo, WhitePages, BeenVerified, and 47 more)
- Removing or privating damaging social media content
- Getting negative news content deindexed from Google
- Strengthening professional presence on LinkedIn and professional directories
The average Vettadex user starts with a score around 400 and reaches the Good range (650+) within 90 days of active monitoring and removal.
Why this matters more than people think
Your reputation score represents the first impression you make on anyone who searches for you — before they've read a word of your resume, heard your voice, or seen your face. In a world where 87% of employers, most landlords, and many clients Google people before making decisions, your score is effectively your first meeting with strangers.
Most people don't know their score is low until something goes wrong — a job offer falls through, a client doesn't call back, a background check surfaces something unexpected. By then, the damage has already happened.