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Thread: What do you see when you Google yourself?

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    Default What do you see when you Google yourself?

    Another thread got me thinking about how I Google myself every so often to see what other people see if they search for me.

    Is my name attached to everything that I do?
    Are there any unfavorable listings?
    How many positions do I have on the first page that are actually me and link back to a way to contact me?

    I'm pretty easy to find on Google, but it could be better.

    What about you guys?
    If someone is thinking about doing business with you and search Google, what will they see?
    Last edited by Harold Mansfield; 08-12-2010 at 01:35 AM.

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    I'm all over Google because of all the stuff I write. So I see lots of posts and comments and things I've done over the years. It's not really related to contacting me personally, so I suppose if you look at it from the angle of building my personal brand, I need to do a little better. It is a pretty good resume of my work history though.

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    ooh it has been a while since I did this...

    First up is a mostly dead/old site of mine (Easy Results w/Radio), then Twitter, then Ezine Articles, then Facebook, then a podcast I was a guest on, then Linked In, then an old podcast I used to host briefly...

    Hmm I should at least update the contact information on the old sites I own I guess...

    It's all me...none of it really unfavorable...but most of it older stuff or social media...on the first page anyway...

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    That was interesting. There is apparently nobody else in the world with my name, so it was a lot of direct hits on articles I've written and even some results from races that I ran in 2000!. My Dad participated in some geneological thing, so the first result is a photo and a list of my D.O.B., wife, and my kids names. A bit too much information for my liking.
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    I'm a one and only as well, although my nephew has the same first name but goes by Will not Bill. So I pop up for my college graduating class, my business name and information, and my home ownership records so anybody can find out where I live.

    I guess there are good points at having a unique name but there are merits to Jim Smith as well.

    So I agree with you Steve, to much info!

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    According to one white pages site, there are 75 people in the United States named David Staub. On Google (at least today) I am in spots #1, #2, #4 and #6 but after that it is pretty spotty. That's OK with me though. In fact, I wouldn't mind if the site at #4 were buried a few pages back.

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    I don't use Google all that much but tried it for this exercise. Interesting!

    My website hits #1 and #2, a newspaper article about me is #3.

    #4, #5 and #6 are Facebbok, LinkedIn and my résumé on a site I sold last year.

    After that, I find I am a geophysicist from Idaho, and Australian rugby league referee, a Twickenham Borough Surveyor, a PayPalX developer, a Mass Communications Professor, a Florida Sexual Offender, a London decorator, an Alaskan professor, and the writer of various articles.

    I was apparently born in 1841 in Illinois, so I seem to have had enough time to do all those things!

    What a fabulous life I seem to have led!

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    I hardly ever search on my name, but when I do I'm in the #3 and #4 spots. There are a couple of well known or known enough authors with the same name, one of which is a college professor with lots of .edu links. After the first few results it's some social media profiles for each of us and some articles I've written. It's a fairly common name so I think I'm doing pretty good to be where I am. I have 3 results in the top 10 and 6 in the top 13.

    Just for fun I did a search on my username. As you might expect I'm nowhere to be found when searching vangogh. Some guy named Vincent seems to dominate the results.
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    The first thing that comes up for me is my personal website (which I can't stand the look of) and the title "Wordpress Webmaster" which isn't all bad.

    Below that is my Facebook page, A blog that I own, EZine articles profile with the title "Expert Author", and Associated Content Profile (Whom I have never written more than a couple of articles for).
    And then my Google profile at the bottom, which is completely unorganized.

    There's also an author with a similar name that has a book on Amazon

    However, there is another with my name, a Gulf War Veteran that was murdered back in 1991 by a member of a white supremacist group. Particularly disturbing is an article written by the guy who killed him.
    So those articles come up on the first page when you Google my name as well.

    I used to want to optimize to push those articles back in the SERP's and then I realized how selfish and stupid that was and that his murder shouldn't be pushed back and buried just because of my selfishness, and I take no action to do so.

    Kind of a downer in this thread, but that's what I and other people see when they Google me.

    However in Yahoo
    ( "Hey, you didn't say anything about the other search engines, no fair")

    It's all good news, 9 out of 10 spots on the first page, all favorable My Website, Linked In, Facebook, 2 blogs, Associated Content, and Examiner,

    Bing is the even better 10 out of 10 results all me. All Good.
    Last edited by Harold Mansfield; 06-24-2010 at 05:36 AM.

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    It's been a while since I've done this and I didn't do it before this post so I can't report on the most current. However, every time I have done this exercise it shows a lot of results that are me (dominates first couple pages or so) and I've never seen anything negative. I know it's not uncommon for clients to do this before hiring, and since I have recent clients who I know have done this, I figure it must still be good.
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