Google Your Name: Managing Your Online Reputation

Googling your name is great way of finding out your internet visibility. While others don't want their names to be Google-able, which is okay; business owners, entrepreneurs, marketers, bloggers and independent contractors/freelancers would love to have their names found in Google.

A lot people in this information age typically do their search of services and products online before doing their purchases. HR and recruitment officer also do their Google and web search to find fresh talents to join their company or for some investigating purposes.

It has been my hobby to sometimes Google my name. I am happy to find out that majority of the searches from the first page down to page ten pertains to me. In that case, my social media effort has been helping me a lot. I see my blog, social networking profiles, blogs, and pictures. It enables me to see who in the web mentions my name and uses my creative common photos.

If you found out that you are not searchable but you wanted to get found by your prospect customers/clients/contacts online, I suggest you ramp up your social media presence and, if you blog, do a little tweaking and improvement on your SEO efforts.

Googling your name will also show you if your name has been dragged into something you don't like. Just yesterday, I found out that my name appeared in a Penis Enhancement site. I'm certain I don't need penis enhancement. I immediately contacted the web master and asked to remove my name. He immediately responded and informed me that my name was removed quickly. What's showing up on my search was a Google cache of their old web page. I'm not sure how that happened in the first place but I was glad I did my Googling.

Google provides helpful information on how to manage your online reputation. One helpful tool that I found is the Me on the Web feature of your Google Dashboard. It "help you keep an eye on what’s out there about you" by getting web alerts everyday, every week, or even as soon as it happens.