Search Yourself and Career

You probably already know that it's a good idea to Google yourself (in the privacy of your own home, of course). Also Google your blog or website's name and URL, and any other word or phrase with which you might be identified on the Internet. Don't limit this activity to just the most popular search engine. Sometimes surprises pop up on Yahoo! or Ask.com and even MSN's Live Search. For example, last night I was checking some links on my info page, and discovered a new reference to an organization I'd forgotten I was once part of. The name under which most of my print credits appear shows up on the new page at least twice.

Why do I care? It's not that I'm so narcissistic that I drool over seeing my name (current or former) in print on the web or anywhere. I overcame that character flaw a long time ago, when attention shifted to seeing my name on checks. The point of regularly searching the web for information about yourself and your work is three-fold:

• to ensure that the data are accurate
• to see how much someone else can find out about you
• the references found also might come in handy some day when you're selling yourself or your services. I use such a list as a means to verify my identity as well as some of my career credits.

Some of the newer automated searchers can display garbled and misleading snippets retrieved from limited sources. I found one of those last night, too. I was thankful the website provides a method to register and correct mistakes in what is displayed. And another showed an inactive email address. I had to jump through a few hoops to get that changed, and I'm grateful for the difficulty that prevents someone else from changing the data about me.