Two Reasons Why You Should Google Yourself!

There are two phrases you should take a moment and search for on Google: 1) Your name; and 2) Your email address. There are lots of reasons to Google yourself! Curiosity is a biggie - you might just want to know where your name or email address is showing up on the Web. I've done that before, and found it very interesting.

A second reason is personal security. Is your email address - or your personal name - or even other technical information about you showing up in places you don't want it to be? It can be a bit shocking if you find your information referenced in places you are not expecting!

I guess Internet security is really on my mind nowadays because I've been the victim of two different hackers. One rendered my entire previous website unusable a few years back, and it was a nightmare trying to reconstruct it. Another time, I was financially victimized through what was supposed to be a very safe and secure website. And this week I received an email from a site I belong to, telling me that my email and password information had been in the hands of someone who had hacked their site. So... yes, I'm a bit paranoid. But where I come from, they say "If you're not paranoid, you're not paying attention!"

I'll eventually be getting rid of my own personal website and changing everything I have left to pages on Squidoo. It makes a lot more sense, I can link everything together just as I would a website, and I don't have to worry about security, hackers, or any other nastiness. I love Squidoo! But for the meantime, I'm stuck dealing with yet another violation of my security. That means changing passwords to every conceivable site I may have joined, and of course changing my really important passwords yet again.

So this is just another little tool for you to use, maybe when you do your taxes every year or some other day easy for you to remember. Just take half an hour and Google yourself. You may be glad you did!

Have you ever Googled yourself?