Do you Google yourself?

[Enzie Shahmiri]

Just recently, I had been listening to a radio program about companies whose job is to surf the net and delete any sort of embarrassing or incriminating information left behind on the net. Apparently employees have gotten into the habit of doing a "Google"search before hiring new prospects and what they find can sometimes cost the applicant the desired position.

Example:
A company was going to hire an Investment Executive. While doing a name search they found this individual frequenting gambling sites and decided to offer the position to someone else. The company felt that this individual apparently was too fond of gambling, too much of a risk taker and felt he would be the wrong candidate for the said position.

Rude comments, fowl language, fraternity pictures in front of tables of empty beer bottles, or you in a less than flattering Halloween costume, when posted on sites by either you or your friends can end up in all sort of places which you might not even be aware of.

Apparently deleting unwanted material can be rather difficult, especially if your name or image has landed on a site of which you are not a member of. Ask yourself, is this the image you want to portray to a potential client, who might google you?

IWhen I created my own web site a counter was added, that would show me from which sites people where being referred to my site. Imagine my surprise, when one day I saw someone came through a link of a porn site. When I googled my name, my web site popped up on even more porn sites. I was mortified, knowing that I have a really bad memory, I started to wonder has it gone this bad, that I have forgotten something crucial about some double live? Well, I decided to investigate and guess what the culprit was?! In my html code, I had written "middot" which places this mark <.> before a sentence. I don't know what other meaning this word might have, but it cropped up a lot on these sites. When I took it out of the html code, eventually my web site disappeared from those sites. To this day, I don't know if this was the reason, all I can say is that I did not want my name or web site to be associated in any form with such sites.

Over the years, I have come to notice that many sites will pick up your site and include it in their directories without prior notification. This can be a good thing, but we all should be aware of how our names are being used and how we are portrayed to the world in general. So google yourself! You might be surprised what you might find!

[Cindy Procious]

Originally Posted by Enzie Shahmiri

Do you google yourself?

90% of us do - the other 10% lie about it.

[Kimberly Dow]

Interesting.

Many folks share my name. Most of them sound smarter than I am...an astrophysicist, event planner, head of a children's hospital. But there was one, and even from my home state of NH - who is a fugutive.

[Enzie Shahmiri]

Cindy, I had to chuckle at your comment, given that it has taken so long to get a response to this topic, I wondered if people are hesitant to admit or if they just don't do it.

I find that many of us spend a great time on line updating web sites, participating and contributing to an array of forums and blogs. These are the areas we have control over, but as I pointed out before sometimes your name or even image can land someplace which you have no idea about unless you "google yourself". Isn't it better to be aware of what your on-line persona says about you than to be negatively surprised?

By the way in the radio interview it was pointed out that if another party refuses to delete something about you on their web site, there are professional companies that can be hired to help you. It also helps to create new posts and join free sites that allow you to upload inforamtion about yourself. Apparently the more new entries are created they push old ones from the 1st pages to latter ones.

On this topic, might I remind everyone to check their guest book entries regulary. Sales people for all sorts of things, love to leave comments in guest books, such as : "Your artwork is really nice. Contact me if you need Viagra"

Kimberly, I really had to laugh at your post. It is fun to see what's out there. Now you might have to add a line to your site stating: "In no way related to Kimberly Dow the Fugitive"!

[Michele Rushworth]

I think anyone in business would be crazy not to google themselves every now and then. You have to know how your website is positioned for the search engines, first of all. Then you have to know what else is floating around out there about you that you may not be aware of. It's all part of running a business in the digital age.

[Vianna Szabo]

It is very handy to have an unusual name in cyber space. I am the only Vianna Szabo out there and the first page is mostly about me. If you put parenthesis around my name, I am it. This makes up for all the mispronunciation I have to contend with. It also makes it easy to send people to my web site if they can spell my name correctly.