Squidoo Tip #29: Protect Your Online Reputation
You’re leaving a semi-permanent trail whenever you post something online. Even if a website, article, or forum post of yours gets deleted, there’s a good chance that it still exists somewhere in the deep reaches of cyberspace… even if it’s just stored in the Wayback machine.
You’re building your reputation every day. If you flame someone or do something shady, people could stumble across that in the future, and it could affect the way they see you. If you tick off somebody badly enough, they might rant about you on some forum or blog. It’s even worse if Google indexes something like this and makes it come up in search results for your name or pseudonym.
On the plus side, the more good stuff you post online, the better. It has a compounding effect.
What does any of this have to do with Squidoo? Not a lot, except to say that how you conduct yourself on Squidoo and elsewhere matters. If you’re trying to be successful and make a name for yourself online, it’s a good idea to consider the long-term consequences of what you post.
9 Comments »
spirituality said :
June 21, 2008 at 3:14 am
Good point. Though I would like to add that sometimes the good you do will be seen as self-serving. The more prominent people get, the more their behavior will be looked at with a magnifying glass. Which is why sometimes Great lenses get 1 star.
clouda9 said :
June 21, 2008 at 3:50 am
I was just talking with a friend today that told me a work e-mail scenario (I won’t get into all the down and dirty here) actually caused a friend of hers to get fired. victorianeely is right on spot to highlight this information, it’s a great reminder!
Susan Villas Lewis said :
June 21, 2008 at 1:25 pm
For the longest time, the only thing that showed up on me when you searched for my name were some posts I made to a Weimaraner list 10 years ago when we first got our dog. This stuff sticks around!
victorianeely said :
June 21, 2008 at 4:19 pm
Spirituality: Yes, it’s true that the more well-known or successful you are, the more likely you’re going to catch some flak from jealous, prejudiced, or misinformed people. I know of someone who received the most horrible comments on her blog, for no reason I can see except that they were jealous of her success at making money online. Although she would have been justified in telling off these jerks, she made herself look many times better than them by not responding, or by saying something nice instead.
Clouda9: Yeah, sometimes this stuff can bleed over into real life in the worst possible way… or vice versa! One of the problems with the Internet is that it’s so easy to say things we probably shouldn’t. It offers a false sense of security.
Susan: Google seems to love hanging on to old stuff for some perverse reason. I still can’t topple the first two search results on my name. This PhD woman who shares her name with me doesn’t even have her own website, for crying out loud!
biggirlblue said :
June 21, 2008 at 5:27 pm
But Yahoo loves you. I did a search for your and your facebook and website were the first two.
victorianeely said :
June 21, 2008 at 5:52 pm
Good, nice, smart Yahoo. Yahoo gets a cookie. Google, go lie in the corner! Hmph.
shannonc said :
June 21, 2008 at 11:41 pm
That’s so true, you have to be so careful about what you say, I find it’s best before posting online to step away from the computer then look at it again as things get misinterpreted so easily. I google my name on a regular basis just to make sure nothing comes up and only use my real name on sites if I want to be found. That happened after I used intention engine for fun and put in some goals I had for the year and they came up #1 in Google when I searched my name. Had to delete that account.
victorianeely said :
June 22, 2008 at 3:11 am
Good advice, Shannon. I actually have Google Alerts set up for automatic ego searches.
There are also many sites where I would definitely use a pseudonym instead.
8Redrose said :
August 5, 2008 at 8:05 pm
Hi everyone,
Those are some really good points. I hadn’t thought of some of these. I’m pretty shy about giving personal info on the net, so thanks for these reminders.
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