Ten years ago, we identified ourselves online with handles, and anonymity ruled the web. It was not unusual to correspond with “Jetsfan77″ or “HikingGirl_06.” The idea of having all your information attached to your name — your real name — seemed crazy. As we’ve moved away from handles, using our legal monikers has ushered in an era of more authenticity and accountability on the web.
And as distinguishing your identity across the web becomes increasingly important, it has also become increasingly difficult. With almost 30% of the world’s 6.7 billion person population using the class='blippr-nobr'>Internetclass="blippr-nobr">Internet today, there are bound to be many of them who share the same name.
There are 149 other “Sarah Kesslers” on Facebookclass="blippr-nobr">Facebook. Twenty-six of us have Twitterclass="blippr-nobr">Twitter accounts, 93 of us use MySpaceclass="blippr-nobr">MySpace, and 78 of us are Linkedinclass="blippr-nobr">LinkedIn. Staking out digital territory across the web, needless to say, has been difficult. And my name isn’t even among the most common.
In a world where almost 80% of hiring managers Googleclass="blippr-nobr">Google job candidates, it’s important to make sure that the people looking you up find you and not someone else with your namesake.
This importance became clear to Pete Kistler when he figured out that he was being turned down for jobs because he shared a name and age bracket with an ex-convict. To help others like him, he started Brand-Yourself, a personal online reputation management service. We caught up with the site’s Chief Marketing Officer Patrick Ambron for his advice on staking out an online identity when there’s competition for your name.
1. Register Available Domain Names
Domain names are important. So important, in fact, that a largely abandoned WordPressclass="blippr-nobr">WordPress blog that uses my name in the title is currently the first search result for my name.
Ambron says that claiming your domain name is the first and most important thing that you can do to make yourself more visible in a Google search. Claim your name on whatever domains are available. Even if you don’t plan to use yourname.co, .info, .net or .mobi, you’ll be preventing other people who share your name from using those domains to compete with you for search result status.
“Google loves the domain name,” Ambron says. “It’s a powerful indication that site is going to be about you.”
2. Mention Yourself on Your Website
It might feel weird to talk about yourself in the third person, but labeling your website’s tabs with your name can give you an advantage in search results.
“This is called keyword density,” Ambron says. “When Google spiders index a site, they look to see how often certain words are used to determine what the site should rank. If your content never mentions your name, how will spiders know it’s about you?”
Even though you might be thinking, “of course it’s [your name]’s bio. Who else’s bio would be on my site?” it’s important to use your full name so that search engines recognize that the site is about you when someone searches for your name.
3. Link to All of Your Content
“ considers each link to your site a vote for the site,” Ambron says. “Google has gotten pretty smart, so where those links come from is very important. The more reputable links are better votes. A vote from CNN is better than some site you made that you just linked to yourself.”
Fortunately, as an individual, there are an abundance of opportunities for you to create links to your site from reputable sources in the form of profiles. A vote from your friend’s website might not count for a lot, but a vote from Facebook will be counted as much more reputable.
Sign up for as many directories and social sites as possible, and make sure to link them all together. One tip that Brand-Yourself advocates is to locate profiles where your name is still available. You can also locate and reserve your name across the web using one of these websites.
“Even if you don’t plan on using all those social sites, and there are plenty of them, it’s good to grab them up,” Ambron says. “It’s good that you’re keeping someone else from using them with your name and contributing to their results.”
4. Create Content and Get Social
“Google loves updated content,” Ambron says. “And the fastest way for an individual to have updated content is to have a social profile that they use.”
One easy way to make sure your blog is always updated, for instance, is to integrate your Twitter account’s RSS feed. Every time you tweet, you’ll update your blog and improve its prominence in search results.
“If you have a blog post that you put on your site, Facebook and Twitter, and five people Like it and share it,” Ambron says, “that’s five credible links from Facebook and from Twitter to your site.“
Do you have a digital doppelganger who has caused confusion in your life? Tell us about it in the comments below.
More Personal Branding Resources from Mashable:
- 7 Services to Find and Reserve Your Name Across the Web/> - 5 Ways to Avoid Sabotaging Your Personal Brand Online/> - 5 Ways to Clean Up Your Social Media Identity/> - HOW TO: Build Your Personal Brand on YouTube/> - HOW TO: Use Social Media to Connect with Other Entrepreneurs
Image courtesy of iStockphotoclass="blippr-nobr">iStockphoto, carrollphoto, fitzer
For more Social Media coverage:
class="f-el">class="cov-twit">Follow Mashable Social Mediaclass="s-el">class="cov-rss">Subscribe to the Social Media channelclass="f-el">class="cov-fb">Become a Fan on Facebookclass="s-el">class="cov-apple">Download our free apps for iPhone and iPad
Let's cut through the marketing speak and look at how we got here, what today's so-called 4G networks offer, what the common acronyms mean, and how they are different from today's 3G networks.
Understanding 3G
Most modern 3G phones (including the iPhone 3G) currently use a technology called HSPA (High Speed Packet Access). It was this technology that allowed users to really use the Internet on their mobile phones, send pictures and watch streaming video at usable speeds. HSPA tops out at about 3.6 Mbps.
Then, with the introduction of HSPA+ - with speeds up to 7.2 Mbps (and with some modifications up to 21 Mbps and a theoretical limit of up to 168 Mbps), wireless speeds started to rival those of many wired connections in users' homes and really allowed for the full spectrum of Internet services to be usable on mobile devices. Just to complicate matters, 3G devices that support speeds around 7.2 Mbps are often called 3.5G devices.
Today's So-Called 4G
Over the last year or so, we have seen the introduction of two so-called 4G technologies: LTE (Long Term Evolutions) and WiMAX. In the U.S., Sprint is using the WiMAX standard for its networks and Verizon is using LTE. With CLEAR, Clearwire is also offering a WiMAX-based broadband network that targets consumers who want fast Internet speeds on their laptops and at home, though the reach of the company's network is still limited to a select number of cities in the U.S.
One of the major differences - besides the faster speeds - between these networks and 3G is that voice - which until now travelled over a separate line - now runs over the same network as the data, and telephony on the phone basically becomes a VoIP application similar to Skype.
With speeds of over 100 Mbps, wireless networks can easily rival the speeds of wired connections. Thanks to this, areas where it is currently too expensive to update wired networks may soon get access to real broadband. By doing away with the enormous costs of physically connecting every household to the wired networks, we will also hopefully see more competition among Internet providers.
WiMAX operators like Clearwire are also able to offer so-called "triple-play" bundles that bring together Internet, phone and television services over the wireless connection.
Real 4G: Coming in 2012
While no actual 4G spec has been finalized yet, the current expectation is that the standard will call for a minimum speed of 1 to 1.5 Gbps. According to a recent report (PDF) by Rysavy Research for 3G Americas, the first networks that will actually fulfill these official requirements for 4G will probably use the LTE-Advanced specifications. The final specs for LTE-Advanced won't be completed until March 2011, though, and the first networks with support for this standard won't go online until 2012. The other real 4G spec that is currently being discussed is the IEEE 802.16m standard, backed by the WiMAX Forum.
Faster speeds are not just the only advantage of these networks. The latency - that is the time it takes the network to respond to a request - is also greatly reduced over these networks.
Image credit: Groupe Aménagement Numérique des Territoires.
Read our news of Bulletstorm dev talks down FPS fatigue.
College Football Returns; Today's TV Schedule | News One: and#13;and#13;College Football schedule.and#13;and#13;Saturday Games of Note on College Football Schedule (Ranked Teams)and#13;and#13;*San Jose State vs. No. ...
Still losing sleep pondering the ending of this summer's smash hit 'Inception'? Can't decide whether it's a dream or reality? Have insomnia over t.
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Read our news of Bulletstorm dev talks down FPS fatigue.
College Football Returns; Today's TV Schedule | News One: and#13;and#13;College Football schedule.and#13;and#13;Saturday Games of Note on College Football Schedule (Ranked Teams)and#13;and#13;*San Jose State vs. No. ...
Still losing sleep pondering the ending of this summer's smash hit 'Inception'? Can't decide whether it's a dream or reality? Have insomnia over t.
bench craft company rip off bench craft company rip offTen years ago, we identified ourselves online with handles, and anonymity ruled the web. It was not unusual to correspond with “Jetsfan77″ or “HikingGirl_06.” The idea of having all your information attached to your name — your real name — seemed crazy. As we’ve moved away from handles, using our legal monikers has ushered in an era of more authenticity and accountability on the web.
And as distinguishing your identity across the web becomes increasingly important, it has also become increasingly difficult. With almost 30% of the world’s 6.7 billion person population using the class='blippr-nobr'>Internetclass="blippr-nobr">Internet today, there are bound to be many of them who share the same name.
There are 149 other “Sarah Kesslers” on Facebookclass="blippr-nobr">Facebook. Twenty-six of us have Twitterclass="blippr-nobr">Twitter accounts, 93 of us use MySpaceclass="blippr-nobr">MySpace, and 78 of us are Linkedinclass="blippr-nobr">LinkedIn. Staking out digital territory across the web, needless to say, has been difficult. And my name isn’t even among the most common.
In a world where almost 80% of hiring managers Googleclass="blippr-nobr">Google job candidates, it’s important to make sure that the people looking you up find you and not someone else with your namesake.
This importance became clear to Pete Kistler when he figured out that he was being turned down for jobs because he shared a name and age bracket with an ex-convict. To help others like him, he started Brand-Yourself, a personal online reputation management service. We caught up with the site’s Chief Marketing Officer Patrick Ambron for his advice on staking out an online identity when there’s competition for your name.
1. Register Available Domain Names
Domain names are important. So important, in fact, that a largely abandoned WordPressclass="blippr-nobr">WordPress blog that uses my name in the title is currently the first search result for my name.
Ambron says that claiming your domain name is the first and most important thing that you can do to make yourself more visible in a Google search. Claim your name on whatever domains are available. Even if you don’t plan to use yourname.co, .info, .net or .mobi, you’ll be preventing other people who share your name from using those domains to compete with you for search result status.
“Google loves the domain name,” Ambron says. “It’s a powerful indication that site is going to be about you.”
2. Mention Yourself on Your Website
It might feel weird to talk about yourself in the third person, but labeling your website’s tabs with your name can give you an advantage in search results.
“This is called keyword density,” Ambron says. “When Google spiders index a site, they look to see how often certain words are used to determine what the site should rank. If your content never mentions your name, how will spiders know it’s about you?”
Even though you might be thinking, “of course it’s [your name]’s bio. Who else’s bio would be on my site?” it’s important to use your full name so that search engines recognize that the site is about you when someone searches for your name.
3. Link to All of Your Content
“ considers each link to your site a vote for the site,” Ambron says. “Google has gotten pretty smart, so where those links come from is very important. The more reputable links are better votes. A vote from CNN is better than some site you made that you just linked to yourself.”
Fortunately, as an individual, there are an abundance of opportunities for you to create links to your site from reputable sources in the form of profiles. A vote from your friend’s website might not count for a lot, but a vote from Facebook will be counted as much more reputable.
Sign up for as many directories and social sites as possible, and make sure to link them all together. One tip that Brand-Yourself advocates is to locate profiles where your name is still available. You can also locate and reserve your name across the web using one of these websites.
“Even if you don’t plan on using all those social sites, and there are plenty of them, it’s good to grab them up,” Ambron says. “It’s good that you’re keeping someone else from using them with your name and contributing to their results.”
4. Create Content and Get Social
“Google loves updated content,” Ambron says. “And the fastest way for an individual to have updated content is to have a social profile that they use.”
One easy way to make sure your blog is always updated, for instance, is to integrate your Twitter account’s RSS feed. Every time you tweet, you’ll update your blog and improve its prominence in search results.
“If you have a blog post that you put on your site, Facebook and Twitter, and five people Like it and share it,” Ambron says, “that’s five credible links from Facebook and from Twitter to your site.“
Do you have a digital doppelganger who has caused confusion in your life? Tell us about it in the comments below.
More Personal Branding Resources from Mashable:
- 7 Services to Find and Reserve Your Name Across the Web/> - 5 Ways to Avoid Sabotaging Your Personal Brand Online/> - 5 Ways to Clean Up Your Social Media Identity/> - HOW TO: Build Your Personal Brand on YouTube/> - HOW TO: Use Social Media to Connect with Other Entrepreneurs
Image courtesy of iStockphotoclass="blippr-nobr">iStockphoto, carrollphoto, fitzer
For more Social Media coverage:
class="f-el">class="cov-twit">Follow Mashable Social Mediaclass="s-el">class="cov-rss">Subscribe to the Social Media channelclass="f-el">class="cov-fb">Become a Fan on Facebookclass="s-el">class="cov-apple">Download our free apps for iPhone and iPad
Let's cut through the marketing speak and look at how we got here, what today's so-called 4G networks offer, what the common acronyms mean, and how they are different from today's 3G networks.
Understanding 3G
Most modern 3G phones (including the iPhone 3G) currently use a technology called HSPA (High Speed Packet Access). It was this technology that allowed users to really use the Internet on their mobile phones, send pictures and watch streaming video at usable speeds. HSPA tops out at about 3.6 Mbps.
Then, with the introduction of HSPA+ - with speeds up to 7.2 Mbps (and with some modifications up to 21 Mbps and a theoretical limit of up to 168 Mbps), wireless speeds started to rival those of many wired connections in users' homes and really allowed for the full spectrum of Internet services to be usable on mobile devices. Just to complicate matters, 3G devices that support speeds around 7.2 Mbps are often called 3.5G devices.
Today's So-Called 4G
Over the last year or so, we have seen the introduction of two so-called 4G technologies: LTE (Long Term Evolutions) and WiMAX. In the U.S., Sprint is using the WiMAX standard for its networks and Verizon is using LTE. With CLEAR, Clearwire is also offering a WiMAX-based broadband network that targets consumers who want fast Internet speeds on their laptops and at home, though the reach of the company's network is still limited to a select number of cities in the U.S.
One of the major differences - besides the faster speeds - between these networks and 3G is that voice - which until now travelled over a separate line - now runs over the same network as the data, and telephony on the phone basically becomes a VoIP application similar to Skype.
With speeds of over 100 Mbps, wireless networks can easily rival the speeds of wired connections. Thanks to this, areas where it is currently too expensive to update wired networks may soon get access to real broadband. By doing away with the enormous costs of physically connecting every household to the wired networks, we will also hopefully see more competition among Internet providers.
WiMAX operators like Clearwire are also able to offer so-called "triple-play" bundles that bring together Internet, phone and television services over the wireless connection.
Real 4G: Coming in 2012
While no actual 4G spec has been finalized yet, the current expectation is that the standard will call for a minimum speed of 1 to 1.5 Gbps. According to a recent report (PDF) by Rysavy Research for 3G Americas, the first networks that will actually fulfill these official requirements for 4G will probably use the LTE-Advanced specifications. The final specs for LTE-Advanced won't be completed until March 2011, though, and the first networks with support for this standard won't go online until 2012. The other real 4G spec that is currently being discussed is the IEEE 802.16m standard, backed by the WiMAX Forum.
Faster speeds are not just the only advantage of these networks. The latency - that is the time it takes the network to respond to a request - is also greatly reduced over these networks.
Image credit: Groupe Aménagement Numérique des Territoires.
bench craft company rip offRead our news of Bulletstorm dev talks down FPS fatigue.
College Football Returns; Today's TV Schedule | News One: and#13;and#13;College Football schedule.and#13;and#13;Saturday Games of Note on College Football Schedule (Ranked Teams)and#13;and#13;*San Jose State vs. No. ...
Still losing sleep pondering the ending of this summer's smash hit 'Inception'? Can't decide whether it's a dream or reality? Have insomnia over t.
bench craft company rip off bench craft company rip off Read our news of Bulletstorm dev talks down FPS fatigue.
College Football Returns; Today's TV Schedule | News One: and#13;and#13;College Football schedule.and#13;and#13;Saturday Games of Note on College Football Schedule (Ranked Teams)and#13;and#13;*San Jose State vs. No. ...
Still losing sleep pondering the ending of this summer's smash hit 'Inception'? Can't decide whether it's a dream or reality? Have insomnia over t.
bench craft company rip off bench craft company rip offRead our news of Bulletstorm dev talks down FPS fatigue.
College Football Returns; Today's TV Schedule | News One: and#13;and#13;College Football schedule.and#13;and#13;Saturday Games of Note on College Football Schedule (Ranked Teams)and#13;and#13;*San Jose State vs. No. ...
Still losing sleep pondering the ending of this summer's smash hit 'Inception'? Can't decide whether it's a dream or reality? Have insomnia over t.
bench craft company rip off
