posted
According to my google search of my name, I apparently am a well known cabinet and kitchen designer, an accomplished cook, and a sociology professor at the University of Washington all at the same time.
It almost gives me hope for my life and career, considering that none of the results were in anyway asociated with the porn industry.
Posts: 681 | Registered: Feb 2004
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posted
Yes! Two things come up, gay porn (seriously), and a high school newspaper article I wrote which was taken without my permission and republished in militant socialist youth newsletters.
posted
All hits but one are about me if you type in my full name. Adam are you actually saying you started dating someone and didn't google stalk them? I'm quite surprised, shocked actually. Anyway, why are you in over your head?
Posts: 872 | Registered: Mar 2002
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Man, even the idea creeps me out. I certainly won't be doing that. It feels too much like an invasion of privacy (I know, I know, the information is in the public domain, but it still bothers me).
Posts: 10886 | Registered: Feb 2000
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posted
The only genuine hit under my name is from a scholarship foundation newsletter. The scholarship foundation helped me in college, and I seem to have made a donation in 2003. I don't even remember that. Posts: 5771 | Registered: Nov 2000
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I have a friend who googlestalks girls before asking them on a first date. His reasoning is that hey, why not use all the filters you can get. I can honestly say I'm not *that* extreme. But I do googles stalk the people I date and even people I'm friends with. I don't make weird judgements on what I find. But it's interesting to see what people are up to. A lot of time they're in control of the content that's up there. My friends are endlessly amused by what they find about me.
Posts: 872 | Registered: Mar 2002
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posted
I was in a cabaret in early December... and the guy who was running it came to me after I told him what I want to sing, and said "so, I hear you're quite the cabaret star already." I had been in another one January of last year, but there was nobody in the cast who knew that... except my little sister, but she didn't tell him. So I looked at him with sort of a wary expression on my face and asked how he knew that. Apparently he googled me, which I find mildly creepy. But he's a nice enough guy, I suppose. Posts: 7877 | Registered: Feb 2003
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posted
Yeah, the whole idea of doing a background check... ugh. No. If I'm curious about something, I just ask.
I met a girl at a formal a few years ago. We arranged to meet a couple of days later to hang out, and she revealed that in the interim she had found and looked over my website (which at the time was stored on my university webspace, so the URL was an obvious derivative of my university email address).
I was slightly creeped out. I want to get to know someone by interacting with them, not by doing internet searches.
Posts: 10886 | Registered: Feb 2000
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posted
I've both googled and been googled by potential dates.
*shrug*
One guy and I had a good laugh when we "came clean" about it on our second or third date together and shared the things we'd learned. I think it's pretty standard practice these days, for better or worse.
Posts: 186 | Registered: Dec 2000
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posted
Weird. It's never occurred to me that people would look me up who don't know me. I find it creepy as well. The extent of my googling people is trying to find out when and where old professional musical friends I've lost touch with are playing their next concert so I can go see them.
In other news, looking up my own name, I'm a very fashionable and famous tiara designer in the UK, a friend of the Florida Everglades, and a South Carolina anti-teen-pregnancy committee member. Also a whole lot of people's dead relative.
Posts: 624 | Registered: Mar 2005
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posted
When I google my full name, ever link I get is really about me (I'm unique).
However it is cool because, although I have done it many times before, this time it showed me that I was listed on my congressman's web page as a 'recent visitor" to his office (when we went to Washington D.C. in May) Cool!
Farmgirl
edit: Lucky4 -- I have always googled, or data-mined, any potential dates. Tough if they don't like it -- this helps me pick out the liars right off the bat, so I don't get attached to someone and then find out they aren't always upfront and honest. You can't be too careful these days. And I wouldn't mind if they did the same to me.
Posts: 9538 | Registered: Aug 2003
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posted
There are 6 zillion hits on my name, but when you take away the ones related to geneaology projects, it falls to about 14 hits. 13 of which are about some doctor with my name, and one about me. Not about me, just mentioning me in passing (an author whose mistake I corrected).
Posts: 5462 | Registered: Apr 2005
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posted
Most of the links are about me, but there are only a handful anyway. Oh well, the mistery of "me" remains! Posts: 4519 | Registered: Sep 2003
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When I google my name -- although the hits are few, it shows some pretty obscure links (posts I've made on various forums, a letter to the college paper, my listing as webmaster of a local city website) but it doesn't ever hit on my family homepage -- even though that has my name all over it. I wonder why that is?
posted
Google hasn't cached your family homepage...small potatoes.
Me and my brother's names show up nowhere, I guess because we both have always been too cautious to put our real names on the internet. But my dad's, on the other hand, is everywhere (mostly due to him being in newspapers that archive online).
Posts: 5462 | Registered: Apr 2005
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posted
My husband apparently builds clocks. He is also a drummer/band leader (actually, I saw him at the Hollywood Bowl one time-- not my husband, the guy with the same name). Then, of course, there are the things actually about him.
Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
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quote:Originally posted by Farmgirl: The thing I can't figure out.
When I google my name -- although the hits are few, it shows some pretty obscure links (posts I've made on various forums, a letter to the college paper, my listing as webmaster of a local city website) but it doesn't ever hit on my family homepage -- even though that has my name all over it. I wonder why that is?
Farmgirl
I *think* that search engines look in the meta tags in the HTML document as a primary source for information, for example:
posted
It's not just that. Google also ranks sites by how often other sites link to them. No one is apparently linking to Farmgirl's family's homepage.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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It returned every address I’ve ever lived at since the early 80s, and two addresses that my folks have lived at since I left for college.
Posts: 5957 | Registered: Oct 2001
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posted
I've tried googling my own name, it never turns up an results that are me, my name is not that unique.
Posts: 2332 | Registered: Jul 2003
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posted
Well, I'm not sure I actually WANT my homepage to show up on a Google search. I was just expressing my surprise that it didn't find it. But yeah, I don't have many outgoing links, and I doubt any other site links to me -- so that would explain it. And -- I hand-coded my site in notepad and didn't include any metatags at all when I created it. So I guess that is a good thing -- only those people I want to see it will see it.
posted
My name is fairly common but one of the web pages I built in college does show up as number one in google rankings. The page is so ugly I kind of wish it would just go away. Unfortunately I have long forgotten the password to that geocities account. Posts: 4116 | Registered: Apr 2002
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posted
Astaril, I'm glad I'm not the only one who is creeped out by the idea.
If I met a girl and she gave me her name but not her number, I wouldn't look it up in the phone book. If she wanted me to have her number she'd have given it to me (and if I really wanted it I would have asked for it). I certainly wouldn't look up her address even if she gave me both her name and phone number. I believe, very strongly, that personal information is to be revealed by the person in question. In my view, as a prospective suitor I am entitled to ask any question I like, and that includes "can I do a background check on you?" but I am not entitled to do such a background check (e.g. via Google) myself without so much as a "hey, I'm going to Google you, is that cool?"
This is why I could never actually be a rock star. My personal information is, well, mine. Added: Again, I'm aware that information on the internet is public-domain; what I'm talking about is respect for privacy and good taste.
Posts: 10886 | Registered: Feb 2000
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posted
Twinky, so you'd never want to find out anything about a girl through online sources? How very odd.
Most of this I already knew without googling, but I am: An anchorman A sportscaster (different channel) A pro football player A pro baseball player A tarot-deck artist A web designer A composer (the score for The Crow, amoung others) A PhD receipient from MIT An adult-video director A dedicated member of the brewing industry Not guilty by reason of insanity (murder, 2001) A pro hockey player Part of the "Moped Army" A bankruptcy lawyer A couple of doctors ...
No mention of the actual me in the first 20 pages, though I know I'm in there somewhere.
posted
I also don't* use the "recent posts by" function here, even (especially) on people I've met in person. I don't keep tabs on anyone else's posts. If someone says something they want me to see and I don't happen to read the relevant thread, there's always email.
So in that sense, anyway, you're right... but that statement is just a wee bit too broad to be strictly accurate.
*I think I might have used it once. That's how I know the functionality exists.
Posts: 10886 | Registered: Feb 2000
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posted
full name in quotes, 5 hits, all legitimately me. Two are work related, the other three are fun stuff. My favorite is this onePosts: 4515 | Registered: Jul 2004
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FG: Contributor's copies - SIGNED by Scott! Plus I had an entire page of pictures on Ridley Pearson's website for about 6 months after the show, which is actually how Scott got in touch with me to get my permission to use the picture.
I think I told the story of that night before... if not, I'll use it for a landmark <eyeing postcount>
Posts: 4515 | Registered: Jul 2004
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It was about my high school taking measures to prevent the formation of a socialist club while allowing other non-school related clubs (such as the UFO club). I would describe it as an investigative editorial accusing the school of playing politics.
I was 16, what did I know?
(Not that I wasn't absolutely right!)
Posts: 2267 | Registered: May 2005
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posted
I can't find it, but I swear I remember a special google search that just gave you the first sentences of websites when you searched with your name, so you ended up with a list like this...
sndrake is a real wanker. when it comes to cat-slinging, sndrake is the master. sndrake came to CalTech in 1988.
posted
Oh my freak. I couldn't find anything under my name, but I just found my first boyfriend from when I was 15! He had a unique name, and I know enough about him to be pretty sure its him.
I'm just a little "weirded out" right now. Posts: 7050 | Registered: Feb 2004
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