Okay, so I don’t have time to manage a personal website (I manage several business-related websites for a living), but there’s no denying the importance of owning and maintaining your personal information online. Understanding how people might be viewing your data online, and managing how your information shows up in search engines, is critical for everybody who has ever created a facebook account.

 

The first step to “owning” your online persona is to test and see how your data is showing up in Google. If you have a very common name, this is a much more complicated exercise. For me, it’s easy - only one “Feather Hickox” is going to show up, and I can easily see how I’m being found.

 

If I google myself today, the first result is of a very out-dated website I built (again, using iWeb) over a year ago. Outdated, goofy - not exactly the impression I’d like to give my peers in the industry or prospective employers.

 

I’m going to over-write that site today with the one I’m currently working on, so we’ll see how long it takes before this blog entry is the first result on Google.

 

The second result is my LinkedIn profile - okay, not bad.

 

Third is my dad’s website. Hmm, not bad, but not sure it’s the third thing I want people to see.

 

Fourth, and almost below the fold is an entry for a conference session I presented at the Women in Technology International conference last year.

 

Over the next few months I’ll be seeing if I can get more of the relevant data “above the fold” through some basic tried and true techniques, as well as testing some new ones.