Google Thy Self

[Brett_Tabke]

A rather amusing article on the art of Googling ones self:

[timesonline.co.uk...]

[creative craig]

Nice find Brett :)

[jeremy goodrich]

That is pretty funny. How many people 'google themselves' I wonder?

[rfgdxm1]

Unfortunately, the John Smith's of this world find this hard to do. :(

[caine]

For those of you pure and inexplicably self-effacing enough not to have spent hours self-Googling — alone in the house, in a ratty dressing gown with the curtains drawn — allow me to give you a step-by- step recreation of the first self-Googling session; usually conducted by a healthy, happy individual in their late twenties to early thirties with, at that point, everything to live for.

“Sigh. Might as well stay online while I wait for that e-mail. Shall I Google Tania Strecker again, and see if she ‘got’ those ‘parcels’ that I ‘sent’? Tumpety- tum. Bah. Maybe I’ll Google the word ‘poo’ again — but how I tire of ratemypoo.com.

* ! *. Maybe — I — could — Google — me. * ! *. * ! *.

“Tippety-tappety — I can’t believe I haven’t done this before! I wonder what impact I’ve made on the world?

very amusing and somewhat true, certainly for the majority of us lot.

[mivox]

I must be odd... I never actually thought of searching for my own name, until a friend emailed me to congratulate me on dominating the top 10 results for my first and last name. (Of course, with a bizarre last name like mine, I don't think it's really such an accomplishment.)

[Brett_Tabke]

It's called "ego surfing [google.com]".

[Mohamed_E]

Wow! I had forgotten how regularily I contributed to usenet newsgroups some 15 years ago! Come to think of it, most of these contributione were very forgettable.

[oilman]

hehe - my nick comes up with more real info on me than my real name does :)

[danny]

I had the top two results on a firstname search until the last index rebuild, when I dropped to #4 and #6. I still have the surname locked, though. Yay vanity! :-)

All this generates pretty much zero traffic, but it does save writing down or reading out URLs for people I meet - I can just say "use Google".

[creative craig]

My name is shared with a baseball player, so I aint even on the first page!

My fault totaly though, I should have been born to different parents :) !

[drako]

Yes Danny,

I also say "use google" when people ask me "where can I find you".
The're always much surprised when they find me at no 1. (not so hard when you have a name like mine :-) )
They always think i'm a SEO-God, very amusing.....
I never tell them I just registered at webmasterworld because I have everything to learn about
every aspect on SEO.....

[caine]

I've been working on the first name thing. Now onto the first page, though do compete, against some reasonably competitive sites.

[jackofalltrades]

Hey creative craig, I also share a name with a baseball player! I also have a Baseball stadium named after me! ;P

Unfortunately searches for my common Scottish surname results in a multitude of genelogy sites and Americans trying to trace their Scottish roots!

how many people out their own www.yourname.com?

Some damn dirty MS software engineer has mine! :(

JOAT

[Yidaki]

Great find!

Yes, i admit: i love to self google! I'm still #1-#3 of 52,100 results! Not bad, he!? ;-)

And the found pages 1. are not my own pages and 2. reflect perfectly what i'm doing for hobby ... no buz bla bla, no self promo, no dummy guestbook entries ... hoaw, hoaw, hoaw! :)

[ppg]

when I google my nick, I just get endless pages on the Power Puff Girls.

hmm, perhaps I should have kept that quiet......

[Weblamer]

i like to plug my last name into google news and see how many distant relations are in trouble. :P

[Iguana]

My last name is Home - no chance of finding my name - I just get Dave's Home page rather than Dave Home's Page

[jatar_k]

I'm with oilman, I only find me when I search my nick.

There seems to be a cryptography fellow and an nfl player both with my name and having a very common name makes it worse.

[DrCool]

So far I am a video game developer, a high school track coach, somebody who deserves a fair trial, a restaurant owner in Boston, and assistant box office manager for the Carolina Hurricanes and that is just on the first couple pages. Nothing that relates to me though.

[nonprof webguy]

There's really no way to hide anymore. Try Googling your phone number and see what happens.

[Beachboy]

Well well well. My WW "handle" comes up on the second page of results (didn't anticipate that), but my actual name comes up first, but it's an uncommon name.

[mivox]

:) Nothing even vaguely related to me comes up for my phone number. That's nice.

[Mohamed_E]

> There's really no way to hide anymore. Try Googling your phone number and see what happens.

That is scary. Enter my phone number and you get not only my name but also my address and a pointer to both Yahoo and Mapquest maps of my location.

[Weblamer]

Thats why i dont have a home phone. Only a cell phone. :P

[pmac]

>Enter my phone number and you get not only my name but also my address <

I use that all the time if I am suspicious of an order. Very handy.

[EquityMind]

Googles Prime Time Debut!

Last week while watching an episode of 'Push, Navada' on ABC the bad guy is asking for a background check on the shows main character - Jim Proofrock. When his cronies begin to give lame and generic background info he cuts them off and states: "If I wanted that kind of background check I could have Googled him myself"!

[clickclick]

Luckily my phone number reveals nothing, but my website has the format www.firstnameSurname.co.uk so guess what? Number one - vanity!

[pshea]

Yes, I agree this is scary. Some cretin who owed me money did a real good job of avoiding my attempts to contact him. I googled him one day. The Parent's Association of his child's local elementary school posted a list of its members, committee assignments and the date of the next meeting. And he was on this committee, so I knew where I could find him.

I did not but it did open my eyes to how personal privacy issues can be easily compromised without your consent/knowledge. Alumni Associations, high school yearbooks going online. I do google myself, yes I do, to make sure that my own privacy is preserved. Like I need someone who's as good as me at this stuff finding out that I am enrolled in a 'How to Overcome Your Fear of Potholes' class at the local rec center!

[martin]

I didn't know the Linux mailing list was mirrored on so many sites. A single post by me accounts for 30-40 SERPs, pretty weird.