FollowI love the Macquarie Dictionary’s word of the year, Googleganger: “a person with the same name as oneself, whose online references are mixed with one’s own among search results for one’s name.”
Apparently I am a gnome rescuer. One of my rescue operations made headlines in the Penrith Press.
Seriously though, it is worthwhile Google stalking your googleganger every so often. Just in case someone more sinister pops up. One way to do that is by setting a Google alert with your name in it.
With people posting, re-tweeting, and sharing all over the place, you can’t have complete control over how you appear on Google. You actually never have had really, but sharing on social media puts a whole new spin on it.
If your online namesake has some unsavoury habits here’s what I would do for a really quick fix.
LinkedIn has a high Google ranking. So your profile reference should appear in a Google search. Hop into LinkedIn and look at your headline, then make sure that it appears in searches. Include a line about what you do and what makes you unique. If you’re stuck, take a look at this post by LinkHumans on creative LinkedIn headlines.
LinkedIn lets you customize what you want to appear in search engines. If you go to settings and edit your public profile, you can work out what you want to appear.
This is how mine appears. It’s obvious that I have no known gnome affiliations by the way I have described myself.
There are many things to be mindful of on Facebook, Twitter and Quora, and other ways you can populate your Google profile. I’ll touch on these when I finish reading the speech my Googleganger girlfriend made at annual dinner of the Blue Mountains Rotary Club in 2008.
It’s a cracker 😉
Karalyn is the Founder of InterviewIQ and chief champion for all her clients. Get personal coaching to make 2023 your most successful year yet. Check out our job search booster services here>>Give me smarter ways to find a job .
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Great article Karalyn with excellent advice! I have several “Googleganger” one of which is very high profile and fortunately she appears to have impeccable net behaviours. She is different enough from me so that there is no confusion. However, another is a party animal (to say the least). My quick way of overcoming the problem was setting up profiles on Ziggs, E-cademy and other social networks, that were on page 1 in 24 hours and pushed the party girl down to page 2. That was a very good day!
“No known gnome affiliations”. Say that three times fast… 🙂
What’s your googleganger been up to lately? – http://ow.ly/60y8c