Web Worker Daily » Blog Archive Why You May Need an Online Pe...

I’ve found that it’s not that hard to clean up your web persona. It turns out, and this is not widely understood, that you own the copyright on anything you’ve written. This includes Usenet, comments on blogs, posts to forums, etc. You can ask that your stuff be removed, and if the site operator balks or misunderstands the law, a DMCA notification to the ISP, Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft can make the site disappear (the lawyers at ISPs and search engines are familiar with the law).

Personally, I’ve found that ISPs overseas (UK and Canada, in my case) will also help you enforce your copyright.

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And finally, anyone who has a web site should include in the [head]:

[META HTTP-EQUIV=”CACHE-CONTROL” CONTENT=”NO-CACHE”]
[META NAME=”ROBOTS” CONTENT=”NOARCHIVE”]

This means that when you take your web site or blog or any content in it off the internet, it’s gone, for all practical purposes, since both Google and Alexa (Wayback Machine) will obey these. Make sure you have your own backup solution for your, however.

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Computer World offers five tips for building your online professional presence including checking search engines like Google and starting a blog. Marketing Pilgrim Andy Beal adds four more good tips:

1. Buy your domain name. Even if you don’t do a lot with it, you should own a domain name that matches (as close as possible) your name. Your online brand is important, and guess what, despite how many employers you may ultimately have, you’ll likely keep that same name for life!
2. Understand your Google profile. Most potential employers are going to use Google, so you may as well focus on the search results there. What’s being said about you, what pages are indexed? Don’t just look at stuff that is about you, look at listings that are about someone with the same name, yet maybe negative. You should be prepared to explain that the person convicted for 3 counts of armed robbery, is not actually you.
3. Own your brand. When someone searches for your name, you should try and make sure you have as much control over what they see, as possible. Set up a Flickr account, LinkedIn profile, blog, user-group profile, etc. While you may need the talents of a search marketer to ensure these pages appear in the top 10 of a search engine, you don’t stand any chance if you don’t actually take the time to create the profile in the first place.
4. Destroy the evidence. Ok, so while most stuff you put online is there for eternity, that doesn’t mean you can’t try some damage control. That blog post you uploaded - the one where you went on an all night drinking binge and broke into the local Krispy Kreme - remove it! While it may still exist somewhere on the web, it is less likely to show up in the Google search results, if you’ve removed it from your own blog/social network.

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