searching for just your name or your business name. Try it with and
without quotation marks. Because Google is so important, look be-
yond just the first page; skim at least the first three pages of results
for any signs of trouble.
As you are searching, you may notice that the Google search box
will suggest searches to you while you type. Not every search term
triggers a suggestion, but, if you do see a search suggestion, it is a
great hint as to what other people are searching for. If any of the
suggested searches are relevant to you, run them! Often, for busi-
nesses, they are very good suggestions of what people are looking
for, like “ReputationDefender coupons” or “ReputationDefender
free trial.” For individuals, they often give hints as to what informa-
tion people want to know, such as “Joe Biden quotes” or “Joe Biden
photo.”
Next, try a quick Google Image Search using the same variations
on your core search terms. Google Image Search can be accessed at
http://images.google.com or by clicking on the “Images” button from
the Google search page. It is often worthwhile to search within
“Google Groups” if you have been online for many years or have any
reason to believe that very tech-savvy people may be discussing you,
your company, or your product. Google Groups is a mixture of Usenet
(an old discussion system that predated the graphical World Wide
Web) and Google-specific discussion areas. Google Groups can be
found at http://groups.google.com or through the Google services
menu. There may be much spam and irrelevant material, but some-
times revealing discussions can be found.
Other Popular General-Purpose Search Engines
Repeat this search-and-refine process for other popular search en-
gines. At the time of writing, Yahoo! Search, Microsoft Bing, and
Ask.com were the most popular publicly accessible search engines af-
ter Google.
Yahoo!’s search engine can be found at http://www.yahoo.com.
Your Reputation Road Map and Online Reputation Audit 1 77
Run the most important searches that you ran using Google’s search
engine, and note the results. Microsoft Bing can be found at http://
www.bing.com. Microsoft has been trying very hard to promote the
site, so it may be very important in the future. It frequently has very
different results from other search engines, and it may help you dis-
cover hidden or otherwise unnoticed negative content. The same
goes for Ask.com’s search engine, which can be found at (surprise)
http://www.ask.com.
People-Specific Search Engines
Search engines that are designed to find information about individ-
uals are becoming increasingly important. Many general-purpose
search engines have trouble finding information about individual
people. For example, a search in Google for “David Thompson” tends
to find information about the “David Thompson Health Region” in
Canada, rather than information about that author, and Google has
trouble distinguishing between one of the authors and the David
Thompson who played professional basketball.
Google has launched its own people-centric search at http://
profiles.google.com. In theory, it contains information about people
who have signed up for the service, but it is worth searching to see if
anything can be found about you. Several other companies have also
attempted to fill the gap by providing search engines targeted exclu-
sively at describing real human beings. These search engines are a trend
to watch when managing your online image.
Depending on your goals, it may be a good thing if you don’t find
anything under your name in these people-specific search engines. If
you would prefer that your private information be kept private, then
there is nothing wrong with being obscure or even completely non-
existent on the Web. On the other hand, if you would like people to
think of you as well known or be able to easily get in touch with you,
then you may have to help these search engines along by seeding them
with positive and accurate content.
Wild West 2.0178
Spock.com (now owned by Intelius) was one of the earliest peo-
ple-related search engines. It pulls data from a variety of sources, in-
cluding MySpace, Facebook, and the “open” Internet to attempt to
create profiles of individuals. However, it is prone to overinclusiveness
in its attempt to gather data; its computers sometimes don’t realize
that two pages that mention the same name are really writing about
two different people.
Spock aggregates a massive amount of data. It attempts to iden-
tify friends, photos of you, your year of birth, and much other infor-
mation. All of the information used by Spock.com is publicly available
somewhere, but the website uses powerful analytic tools to put it all in
one place. Because it gathers information from such a wide variety of
sources, it is able to present a variety of facts about you. Just as the
best lies all contain a kernel of truth, the correct information reflected
in a Spock.com profile gives false credibility to any inaccurate infor-
mation that is also shown.
You can find the Spock people search engine at http://www
.spock.com. Make sure to try variations on your name.
One of the leading personal search engines is Pipl, found at
http://www.pipl.com. Pipl allows searching for people by name,
e-mail address, or even website username. Make sure you try all three
options. Another popular people-based search engine is Wink. It can
be found at http://www.wink.com. It suffers from many of the same
problems of under- and overinclusiveness as Spock. Similarly, the
tool PeekYou gets hundreds of thousands of viewers per month at
http://www.peekyou.com and appears to suffer from vast overinclu-
siveness; many profiles have information in them that actually per-
tains to somebody else with the same or similar name. PeekYou
allows users to make “suggestions” that profiles be updated to remove
inaccurate information but does not guarantee that these suggestions
will be implemented. More sites are springing up in this category,
so keep your eyes open for others and visit WildWest2.com for
updates.
Your Reputation Road Map and Online Reputation Audit 1 79
Personal Data Finders
Some sites focus exclusively on providing an address, phone number,
e-mail address, and other personal information about everyone who
has a telephone or a utility bill. While they do not provide a lot of in-
formation about your reputation directly, they do provide fodder for
identity thieves, harassers, stalkers, and others.
In many cases, it may be best to try to eliminate as much of this
information as possible. Many of the more heinous forms of online
attack involve using real-world information to scare or threaten peo-
ple directly or even to flood your mailbox with junk postal mail. By
making that information more difficult to find, you can provide a
layer of protection for yourself and your family.
Free Data Finders
There are hundreds of sites that can be used to search for basic per-
sonal information about you. Many draw from the same data sources,
often as “teasers” to drive people toward the expensive pay-per-use
data search services.
One of the most popular free data search sites takes its name
from the phonebook: Whitepages.com. It is available at http://
www.whitepages.com. It is one of the 100 most popular websites in
the United States.
4
By searching for your name, you can quickly de-
termine how easy it would be for somebody else to find you, your ad-
dress and telephone number, and other information.
A fast-growing site to find information is 123people, available at
http://www.123people.com. It is a hybrid between a people-centric
search engine and a data finder. It aims to provide both contact in-
formation and any Web results, although it is often both over- and
underinclusive.
Yahoo! also offers a unique search product that combines its Web
search with a customized people-search product. At http://people
.yahoo.com, you can find a powerful search system that will attempt
to find information both on the Web and in phone databases.
There are hundreds of other sites that replicate information sim-
Wild West 2.0180
ilar to what may be found in these listings; such websites often get
their information by buying access to massive personal information
databases. Visit http://www.wildwest2.com/privacy for a list of
some of these databases.
Paid Data Finders
There are also sites that charge between $5 and $50 to find a vast ar-
ray of information that you may have thought impossible to find.
Some even boast about their ability to find unlisted phone numbers
and addresses for just a few dollars. Often, these sites are backed by
the massive databases run by companies like Experian, Transunion,
and Equifax and by the massive data aggregation systems run by com-
panies like ChoicePoint.
Some smaller companies are even less reputable than the sites
backed by the large data brokers. The company LocateCell, which
has since been shut down by the combined efforts of the U.S. Federal
Communications Commission and a state attorney general, offered a
very special package: for $110, anyone could buy a list showing every
call placed or received by a target cell phone.
5
While this business is
now gone, it shows the extent to which information that once
seemed private can become instantly accessible worldwide—at least
for the right price.
Fortunately, fewer people will use the paid sites to find informa-
tion about you than will avail themselves of free sites. Anyone willing
to invest the money it would take to order personal information
through one of these sites could probably have found the information
in other ways. Ultimately, some of these sites provide information for
beneficial purposes such as job screening and identity verification,
rather than for malicious purposes. Unless you have a reason to be-
lieve that somebody is willing to spend $5 to $50 to get your personal
information, it is not necessary to search paid systems, although it is
worth noting that some reputation management firms have special
deals that allow them to check databases that would otherwise be in-
accessible to the general public.
Your Reputation Road Map and Online Reputation Audit 1 81
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