Google yourself…
Sometime ago I wrote an article on Active Rain, a real estate blogsite about the importance of protecting your good name. Most will agree, our reputation is very important. These days it is so easy for someone to go on the internet and damage a reputation.
Glenn Roberts Jr. of Inman News picked up the blog and discussed it in Part 3: Web trends: Who’s keeping track? (I’d link to the article, but it is a subscription based site).
Roberts discussed how another real estate blogger, Don Fabrizio-Garcia with Prudential Connecticut Realty in Danbury, CT was wrongfully accused of making a comment. Don went through a week of pain before the comment was removed.
Don’s example is one we should all heed. Setting up a RSS feed to track when your name, your company’s name is mentioned on the Internet is a wise thing to do. It is easily done, and Google offers a service that is free. So there is no excuse not to do it!
Anyone who’s going to be in touch with consumers needs to know what is being said about them. Whether it’s in the real estate business or another industry.
Rich Jacobson who writes part of the Soundbite Blog and is with Windermere Real Estate/West Sound Inc. in Silverdale, Washington feels it is important to monitor web content. Doing so can uncover things said about you, but also plagiarism.
Thanks to Glenn Roberts and Inman for making us famous for 15 minutes. I hope you will follow through with the links and set up an RSS feed to protect yourself.
Do it now.
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9 Responses to “ Google yourself… ”
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Great idea about using the Google search as a way of tracking yourself online. I had been using nothing but Technorati, but this should be better.
Anything you write online gets indexed… forever. It’s a little scary really.
(Not sure if this a repeat comment or not, my browser crash just as I sent it.)
Once again, it’s funny how another post will directly relate to one’s current situation. I just set up my tracking this morning. With such an uncommon last name it would be easy to try and dig up dirt. But, it’s nice to now know that I, or my husband, has a number of interesting relatives around the world.
Congrats on the Inman article! I just recently learned about tracking and don’t know what I would do without those “Google alerts” - great tool.
Greetings,
Nice Posted! Its so very informative and knowledgeable for your visitors or readers.
Thank You for sharing.. Keep up the good work..
More Power,
Freddie Aguilar
http://www.hihcorp.com/
A wise tomato man once told me that it only takes a few postings by someone out to get you to trash your reputation. It is a little frightening with so many people “googling” others before they do business with them.
Thanks for the informative post. I never thought much of this becoming a potential problem, but I will definitely take this info to heart.
Great post KK. It’s important to watch what people are saying about you. It’s also *really* important to watch what WE say on the internet. As Athol mentions, what you write is indexed forever.
I participate on my website providers user forum. Some of those threads are open to the public, and indexed by Google. I got flamed there once by a rather rude agent.
Google “Nick Strippy” and see what comes up in the first 3 postions, ABOVE his own site…. and believe me, potential clients WILL Google your name, looking for precisely this type of thing…..
Great post KK. It’s important to watch what people are saying about you. It’s also *really* important to watch what WE say on the internet. As Athol mentions, what you write is indexed forever.
I participate on my website providers user forum. Some of those threads are open to the public, and indexed by Google. I got flamed there once by a rather rude agent.
Google “Nick Strippy” and see what comes up in the first 3 postions, ABOVE his own site…. and believe me, potential clients WILL Google your name, looking for precisely this type of thing…..
I started googling myself weekly since your post on AR. It’s kind of like looking in the mirror. You hope you like what you see.