Have you ever wanted to control what comes up when someone does a Google search for you? Well to some extent, that is now possible. Google released their new profiles this week which enables you to control how you appear in Google.
Of course you need an account with Google in order to create your profile. If you don't already have one, or several, they are free and include a Gmail account. Once you login to your Google account you will be able to set up your profile.
Your profile includes the basics such as name, location, what you do, where you went to school, pics, etc. None of the into is mandatory so you can be as public or as private as you wish. You even have the option to display your full name (so you can be found) and to allow people to contact you without displaying your email address. You also get to add a bio about yourself and any links you would like to appear on your profile. They even provide you a handy profile URL to make it easy for people to find you on the web.
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The way it works now is that if someone does a search for you, your profile will appear at the bottom of the search results page. So if there are existing search results for your name, they will still appear first. If that information is negative for some reason, that is still what a searcher is going to see first. Plus, up to four Google profiles may appear at the bottom of the page. So if you have a common name, yours may not even show up.
This all begs the question, "Is this a good thing or a bad thing?" Sure we all would love to control what is returned on Google when a query for our name is conducted. But, I'm not completely convinced this is the way I would like to have it done. After all, I am required to give Google all of this information if I want my profile to appear. Is this a service for the people or another way Google is invading our privacy and taking over the world?
Tags:
search,
email,
internet