July 30th, 2008
Checking Up on My Online Self
I am amazed by how many people have never Googled themselves. Don’t think it matters? Think again.
When I Googled myself this morning I found lots of interesting tidbits. First, as expected, there at the top of the list is my skyepr website, followed by the Brand Dame Blog, and my LinkedIn profile. But wait–what’s this? Something called my Pipl Profile — never heard of that before. I click on it et voila! All the words I use to describe my personal brand collected into a handy snapshot of Brand Lyn! How clever! How thoughtful of Pipl’s deep search robots to scour the web on my behalf ….
But wait, what’s this? Lyn Chamberlin-Scientology Service Completions ? WHAAAAAT? I hesitate to give you the link, dear reader, to yet another snake-in-the-mailbox Scientology scam to get those of us appalled to see our names connected in any public profile to this organization click and read the propaganda that’s there. There is no way to get rid of this, and since Google listings appear in order of their rankings (the most-read appears first, etc.), I have to assume that people are as surprised as I am to find this link holding the # 4 spot in my little Google precis.
Once I get past this blight on my otherwise, ah-hem, impressive Google reputation, I skip happily along through articles I’ve written, talks I’ve given, even a book that was written about the tragic/comic saga of the Monitor Channel.
Several clients have asked me lately if there is a way to get rid of something on Google that you wish wasn’t there. The answer is there is no quick fix; no instant delete. The only solution is to take your online reputation very seriously. Just because you can’t see it doesn’t mean it’s not there.
You must feed the beast–using every means possible –yes, Twitter, flickr, LinkedIn, ning, and all the other entrance ramps to the Internet expressway. Keep shoveling coal into the content furnace and watch as that zinger someone took at you online in 2001 begins to fall below the Google radar.
