Did you ever google your user name?

[Bibby]

It's definitely a good idea to Google your real name (and maiden names and other variants) and all of your online user names - and, of course, any businesses or nonprofits you're associated with - on a regular basis. I wouldn't do something as simple as choosing someone for a team project in one of my classes without Googling them first, so you can bet your bottom dollar that I'd do a Google-based background check before even considering a professional or romantic relationship with anyone.

As for my real name, I apparently share the same name as a local minister, another student who attended the same college as me, some guy who was accused of insurance fraud in the 90s, and a meth-addicted rapist. One of the reasons I made sure to establish an active social media presence is I wanted to make it clear that I wasn't the same person as the two unsavory characters who shared my same name and city. Fortunately, my own social media profiles now show up at the top of Google searches.

My DegreeForum name, which I use at a few other places, is so common that no one will ever find it through a simple Google search.

My other online user name is used on a bunch of different sites. A couple of other people have inactive accounts with the same name on other sites. It would take quite a bit of Googling to link my online identity with my real-life identity, and if they actually did that, they'd find that most of what I did was boring and essentially positive.

eddie4: It's tough to get stuff removed from the Internet. Try e-mailing whoever runs the site and asking - politely - for the information to be removed.