I don't like what turns up when I google my name.
August 13, 2008 2:01 PM Subscribe
I don't like some of the results that turn up when I google my name. What can I do about it?
That kind of depends on whether googling your name brings up you or a bunch of other people that have the same name as you. If the latter is the case, you're basically SOL.
posted by LionIndex at 2:13 PM on August 13, 2008
posted by LionIndex at 2:13 PM on August 13, 2008
Been there. Answer: very little.
I have a ton of old Usenet posts, many of which I'd rather not be associated with anymore. Sure, I could ask Google to deindex them from their Groups archive, but all of the posts which quote me would still be there.
As for a straight Google search, you can drop unflattering results closer to the end of the list by getting the good stuff near the top. How? Newer and more frequently linked stuff rises to the top. Post frequently to blogs with your real name and those results will leapfrog the older ones, particularly if you post to blogs which are heavily linked to.
Or join a running club or the like and attend a few races, or a chess cclub, or whatever. These results will filter to the top relatively quickly.
I also go by my full name professionally and use its diminutive form casually and online. Employers who search for me will not see the crazy.
And if they do search for the diminutive, all you need for plausible deniability is a couple of other people with the same name. Luckily for me, there are about a dozen in my case, and my name is uncommon. There was even a second person with my name in my hometown (unrelated)! Worst comes to worst, I can just say that it's not me. And I have.
I'm not the origami guy, or the Scientologist, or the 4x4 enthusiast...or the freak who flamed people on Usenet for a decade. And you can't prove otherwise. ;-)
posted by ten pounds of inedita at 2:15 PM on August 13, 2008 [1 favorite]
I have a ton of old Usenet posts, many of which I'd rather not be associated with anymore. Sure, I could ask Google to deindex them from their Groups archive, but all of the posts which quote me would still be there.
As for a straight Google search, you can drop unflattering results closer to the end of the list by getting the good stuff near the top. How? Newer and more frequently linked stuff rises to the top. Post frequently to blogs with your real name and those results will leapfrog the older ones, particularly if you post to blogs which are heavily linked to.
Or join a running club or the like and attend a few races, or a chess cclub, or whatever. These results will filter to the top relatively quickly.
I also go by my full name professionally and use its diminutive form casually and online. Employers who search for me will not see the crazy.
And if they do search for the diminutive, all you need for plausible deniability is a couple of other people with the same name. Luckily for me, there are about a dozen in my case, and my name is uncommon. There was even a second person with my name in my hometown (unrelated)! Worst comes to worst, I can just say that it's not me. And I have.
I'm not the origami guy, or the Scientologist, or the 4x4 enthusiast...or the freak who flamed people on Usenet for a decade. And you can't prove otherwise. ;-)
posted by ten pounds of inedita at 2:15 PM on August 13, 2008 [1 favorite]
Search AskMe because this has been answered numerous times.
posted by fire&wings at 2:17 PM on August 13, 2008
posted by fire&wings at 2:17 PM on August 13, 2008
Depends on where you found your name. I'm assuming you mean your real name?
General answer: very little if anything. Usually nothing, especially when the domains don't belong to you. But there are ways to take advantage of SEO.
And this, kids, is why employers are searching the Internet more. I think there's a saying about it in general: Never post anywhere on the Internet things you might regret in the future.
posted by Ky at 2:18 PM on August 13, 2008
General answer: very little if anything. Usually nothing, especially when the domains don't belong to you. But there are ways to take advantage of SEO.
And this, kids, is why employers are searching the Internet more. I think there's a saying about it in general: Never post anywhere on the Internet things you might regret in the future.
posted by Ky at 2:18 PM on August 13, 2008
Create a couple of alter egos with verifiably different photos and locations. For instance, my name is common enough that while my homepage comes up on the first page of google results, so does some IMDB guy, a portrait photographer, and a journalist in Louisville, KY. So the fact that any given page has my name is meaningless.
In my case, it's real, but it doesn't have to be.
posted by smackfu at 2:22 PM on August 13, 2008 [1 favorite]
In my case, it's real, but it doesn't have to be.
posted by smackfu at 2:22 PM on August 13, 2008 [1 favorite]
Assuming that your MeFi nickname is in fact your real name I Googled Ali Torbati and I can't see what the problem is, all the links on the front page are pretty innocuous.
The only real solution to this problem is to buy the domain name that corresponds to your name and create a page or website with the information you want people to know about yourself. You can't get rid of anything else on the internet but you can endeavour to control what the top results in Google might be.
posted by electricinca at 2:36 PM on August 13, 2008
The only real solution to this problem is to buy the domain name that corresponds to your name and create a page or website with the information you want people to know about yourself. You can't get rid of anything else on the internet but you can endeavour to control what the top results in Google might be.
posted by electricinca at 2:36 PM on August 13, 2008
Yeah, 'not sure this is a good idea' pretty much has it right—short of slanderous material (in which case your goal is to sue the site and get it taken down), you can't really do anything to the other results.
What you can do, though, is try to drown them out. "make something you like more, and make it more popular" is really good advice. Whether you set up your own site (and link to it copiously) or whatnot, you can try to get your links to come before theirs.
smackfu has neat advice too, though. I have a common name, but if you don't, you can try to create the impression that you do.
One of my old usernames is something 'unique,' and I found that I could run a blog with a million posts under that name, but there was no way to keep my Flickr page with that name from the top. My Youtube account, and some other related things, were also on the front page. Those things always seem to rise to the top.
So create accounts on 'popular' sites using your real name. Start a Flickr album under your real name, and maybe a Youtube account, and an Amazon account... And I bet they'll surge to the top. You could go for smackfu's idea of making them alter-egos to pretend there are a lot of you, or you could use them as your accounts and post 'good' stuff (maybe some photos of you being a loving father or hard at work or something), favorite some 'good' Youtube videos, and put, "How to Be The Best Employee Ever" on your public Amazon wishlist.
And 'ten pounds of inedita' is right: Google seems infatuated with road-race results. Google the name of someone who's run in a couple road races, and odds are that the results will be on the first page of results. So maybe you can take up running and do 5Ks whenever you can.
posted by fogster at 3:01 PM on August 13, 2008
What you can do, though, is try to drown them out. "make something you like more, and make it more popular" is really good advice. Whether you set up your own site (and link to it copiously) or whatnot, you can try to get your links to come before theirs.
smackfu has neat advice too, though. I have a common name, but if you don't, you can try to create the impression that you do.
One of my old usernames is something 'unique,' and I found that I could run a blog with a million posts under that name, but there was no way to keep my Flickr page with that name from the top. My Youtube account, and some other related things, were also on the front page. Those things always seem to rise to the top.
So create accounts on 'popular' sites using your real name. Start a Flickr album under your real name, and maybe a Youtube account, and an Amazon account... And I bet they'll surge to the top. You could go for smackfu's idea of making them alter-egos to pretend there are a lot of you, or you could use them as your accounts and post 'good' stuff (maybe some photos of you being a loving father or hard at work or something), favorite some 'good' Youtube videos, and put, "How to Be The Best Employee Ever" on your public Amazon wishlist.
And 'ten pounds of inedita' is right: Google seems infatuated with road-race results. Google the name of someone who's run in a couple road races, and odds are that the results will be on the first page of results. So maybe you can take up running and do 5Ks whenever you can.
posted by fogster at 3:01 PM on August 13, 2008
Sometimes you can get rid of it - I TMI-posted to an email list years ago with my real name in the header, and didn't know the list messages were also published on a web site. After some investigating I found a contact page for the site with instructions for what to do if you wanted your messages anonymised, followed the instructions and voila! No more TMI google results for my unique name.
Otherwise, I'd try to bury the results with better ones.
posted by goo at 3:05 PM on August 13, 2008
Otherwise, I'd try to bury the results with better ones.
posted by goo at 3:05 PM on August 13, 2008
I own the .com of my name, and there's absolutely nothing there at all, not even a holding page, but it still comes up very near the top of a Google search, something I've never been able to explain in terms of PageRank etc. So if you actually put something up at such a site it might well cruise to the top of Google... and at least distract people from the results a few further down.
posted by game warden to the events rhino at 3:09 PM on August 13, 2008
posted by game warden to the events rhino at 3:09 PM on August 13, 2008
You could create some fake red herring identities, for people with the same name as yours, so that anyone coming across the current Google results might associate it with one of the red herring identities instead of you.
posted by XMLicious at 3:43 PM on August 13, 2008
posted by XMLicious at 3:43 PM on August 13, 2008
Create a LinkedIn account with the good info, add a few work contacts, I was surprised how many of my previous colleagues used it for networking. It's free and popular enough that it should help drown-out the other stuff.
posted by hungrysquirrels at 6:26 PM on August 13, 2008
posted by hungrysquirrels at 6:26 PM on August 13, 2008
I'll second LinkedIn, and throw ClaimID in as well. Use it to promote the good stuff, too.
posted by malaprohibita at 7:43 AM on August 15, 2008
posted by malaprohibita at 7:43 AM on August 15, 2008
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(2) change your name
posted by not sure this is a good idea at 2:12 PM on August 13, 2008 [1 favorite]