Google Yourself!!

The act of Googling oneself has become one of our favourite guilty pleasures in this new digital age. We suppose it is an activity enjoyed by many but admitted by few. The reason people search for themselves is that they are curious about what other people will see when they search for their names.

We are all a little curious to ponder on what kind of information is circulating in the digital world about us, even worse, what if there is an inaccurate detail posted about us??.Learning how to perform a complete search for yourself with Google therefore makes sense in a world where everything is online (well almost!!)

What does Google have to say about you and how you could control it- is important to know and we need to understand this:

Listing Your Name:

First of all, make sure that you are among the top people in a search for your name. This is not so difficult when you have an unusual name but slightly harder when you have a more common name like Lisa Sullivan! If you do have a unique or less common name, a moderate amount of online activity will put you above the handful of people with the same name. On the other hand, if you have a familiar name, like Steve Palmer, you have to work especially hard to even be on the first page of listings since there are many more Steve Palmer’s active online.

For those who wish to increase their digital footprint, building and optimising a website helps in increasing the visibility. Social media sites are also a great way to start, so it is a good idea to have and maintain an active profile on several of the popular networking sites like Facebook, MySpace, Twitter etc

In order to assist people in googling their names, Google has introduced “Google Profile”, which helps people to control how they will appear in Google searches for their names. You just need to create a profile and point it to other relevant sites for those looking for you. The Google profile provides you with a personalised page on which you can include links to your blog, Twitter feed or company website, plus share online photos and link to your other profiles on sites such as Facebook, MySpace and LinkedIn.

The more information you add to your Google profile, the higher your page is likely to be ranked on a Google search for your name and associated keywords.

Eliminating Unwanted Information

Even though you appear among the top most search results for your name or even if you come out first on the list, what comes up against your name might not be to your liking. What do you do?

There may be information about you which is incomplete or inaccurate. It is therefore important to take steps to rectify the situation. Contacting the website or company responsible for the error is often all it takes. In order to remove any obsolete information you could simply contact the people in charge of administering the space and ask them to remove or update the material.

Importance:

The ready availability of information on the Internet makes it easy for people to do free basic background checks on you or on other people before entering into business relationships. This is something you too should definitely do yourself before hiring anybody as an employee, consultant, or contractor or before entering into a business relationship.

So even though you have updated the information about you on the web and have taken measures to increase your search listings, you should maintain your online footprints by periodically performing searches on your name. Once a month is more than enough to ensure that your good name remains unblemished.

So take the next 2 minutes to run a Google search, or Yahoo or any search provider of your choice, and see what comes up!