Post: #1

Something I posted on a travel blog around 3 years ago came back to haunt me recently. I'd forgotten all about it, it was supposed to be password protected (guess there were ways to read it) and has since been deleted but it's still causing problems.

A girl I'm seeing basically found a blog where some wannabe journalist posted an article on his blog linking to mines, trying to shame me for what I'd posted. My blog is no longer there like I say but his article is, along with my picture, my name and town that I live in with him and a bunch of other followers of his blog talking shit about me. I don't care much that the girl found it and she's cool with me still anyway BUT what I do care about is that when I type my name and home town into google this guys blog comes up. Nothing to stop anyone I know, friends or family or future employers finding this and it wouldn't exactly look good to see my picture and me talking about my antics abroad.

I've sent him a polite email asking if he'll remove the post to protect my privacy, explaining it was supposed to be private anyway and the blog is now deleted. Waiting on a response. Even if he does it will still show up in google cache I beleive.

Any ways to get rid of this or push it so far up the rankings of google it's not showing up on the first page? What, if anything, can we do to wipe our online past?

Might be a good thread for people to share tips on remaining anonymous online too.

Post: #2

You could do like me and use non-similar avatars and aliases to remain untraceable, never post your face, and close anything old. Or send the guy a takedown notice. I mean he posted your intellectual property...bit of a farfetched dick move, but it's possible I'm sure.

Post: #3

I think in this scenario you've taken the right steps, you sent him an email, had the blog post removed and, in time, it'll just fade away. It's not like this one small blog post is going to haunt you forever. It'll be done with in a matter of weeks, probably.

As for anonymity, change up your aliases often, use proxies/TOR, get off social media. And, bottom line: Don't share photos or content you wouldn't want traced back to you.

Post: #4

Never use your real name on social media sites. If you have, change it. The sheep will likely quip about the name change, ignore them.

Post: #5

I recently read a business biography on Mark Zuckerberg and the founding of Facebook. Obviously he, and Facebook, have experienced great success, but his belief that people will use their Facebook account with their real names for EVERYTHING they do on the internet struck me as incredibly naive. Obviously where people to act this way it would be in Facebook's interest - since they'd have much better data for targeted ads this way. But I don't think personal internet usage will ever be anywhere near as openly public as they wish for.

They've already lost out big time to linkedin as far as proffesional networks is concerned. Apparently Zuckerberg and Facebook believed that most people would be 100% cool with using their normal Facebook account for proffesional and career networking as well. Riiiight, the scandelelous pics, inane comments etc. will really endear you to a potential employer or business partner. Can work in certain fields, but linkedin's rise prove that Facebook got this one very wrong.

Post: #6

If he doesn't respond to your polite email asking him to take it down. You can send him a DMCA letter since your face and picture is your property.

Post: #7

Quote:It's not like this one small blog post is going to haunt you forever. It'll be done with in a matter of weeks, probably.

The blog post that I made was 2 years ago, the guy that then reposted it and commented on it also did it 2 years ago. I only found out about it now so it's been floating around the internet for 2 years. It's also on the first page of google when you type my real name and home city.
Yes I stupidly used my real name and photos on a travelblog though in my defence I paid for it to be private and password protected which obviously never worked properly as he managed to access it, and he only managed to access it when he read about it on another blog. So it's potentially all over the place but I'm just concernced with this one blog that shows up on page one of google when you type my name + home town. If I can get rid of that then I'll be less worried.

Quote:You can send him a DMCA letter since your face and picture is your property.

DMCA letter??

Post: #8

I'll send you a blackhat trick on how to take almost any site down (as long as it's a small one). Please don't share mindlessly as it can easily be abused by people involved in SEO.

Post: #9

If the guy re-posted your full blog post, you can send a DMCA takedown notice to his web host -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Mil...right_Act. If he just posted snippets, you can't. Pictures, may be, may be not. If you do this, it might backfire and you might create more of an issue. You definitely don't want an article in the NYTimes about some grumpy blogger who is fighting a DMCA request.

Here are proactive things you can do since the past is the past.

1. DMCA
2. Bury his site in Google. That's a lot of time and work. Depending on how much weight his blog has it could cost you several thousand to tens of thousands of dollars. An example of this is "jesse willms" He is a Canadian who was catching a lot of heat from the FTC, so him or someone associated with him worked to bury bad results in Google. This included making lots of websites and website profiles, along with generating lots of publicity by donating money to charities every month or so -- which got covered by real newspapers.
3. Legally change your name
4. Don't tell girls your real last name.

I had a female friend who did a stint in jail. As she was an attractive female everyone would Google her name. Smartly, she changed the public spelling of her name. No one would know because it sounded the same.

For a while in the past my blog ranked on the first page of Google for my name. Fortunately I share a name with a famous person so all I had to do was stop updating my blog and it slowly dropped off. Because your showing up for name + city, it may not be so easy. I imagine my blog would still show up with the right searches.

You guys got to be careful. Google Images can ID a lot of people's identities just by dragging and dropping a photo in to search. That's public face recognition on a global scale, accessible to anyone. Its only going to get better.

Even your style of writing can give you away. Just today a federal prosecutor resigned because he was posting comments on news stories related to a case he was involved him. The defense team grew suspicious and hired the writing analyst that helped ID the unabomber.

This may be extreme paranoia, but these in 10 years these technologies are going to blow your mind.

I take the easy way. I say what I mean. I don't live a double life. I don't trample over girls. Hell, I don't trample over people I do business with -- associates or competitors. I make no apologies for my political or social views. If someone doesn't like me, then so be it. I probably wouldn't like them either.

Too many people want to be mini-celebrities. Because of this, there will be no meaningful legal restraints placed on things like public face recognition. Google wants to know everything you do and everything about you. So does Facebook. Nearly all phones and computers contain microphones and video cameras that can be surreptitiously activated.

Privacy is dead.

[/end rant]

Post: #10

(03-20-2012 11:05 AM)OldRich Wrote:  If he doesn't respond to your polite email asking him to take it down. You can send him a DMCA letter since your face and picture is your property.

Actually, no. But send it anyway. DMCA puts the burden of proof on the accused, so most dudes just take it down to avoid the hassle.

It is a dick move, tough... Even if you changed your mind and no longer agree with something you did or said years ago, be proud of who you where, after all it allowed you to become what you are now.

Unless it comes up in the first 10 results on Google when searching for your name, dont worry about it. If it does, just give it some time, or build a blog or webpage (with cool thing about you, and in YOUR control) to push the negative results back.

Post: #11

Keep in mind that in addition to google caching, there are internet archive bots that save snapshots of web pages for posterity. I've seen websites on these archives that I up in the mid 90s.

I've had shit I posted on forums using the same name come back and bite me in the ass. Going forward, if I am using my real name(like on FB) I never post anything I'd be embarrassed to see on the front page of the newspaper. For forums and blogs, I try to use different names for each blog to make myself untraceable.

Post: #12

I spent several months painstakingly cleaning up my online footprint. A lot of what I did, I did old-school, as people have recommended: contacting website owners and reasonably asking them to please remove the information. Politeness and courtesy go a long, long way. Despite all this, I was unable to get rid of everything.

I had no specific goal or reason, except that I was beginning to feel like too much was out there and I didn't realize what it could turn into in the the future. An ounce of prevention and all that. Even here, despite the fact that nothing I say is illegal or exceptionally controversial, I'm cautious about revealing identifying information. Lurkers and Internet bots pick up the weirdest shit.

The dilution idea is probably the best one out there. Post vanilla comments on news sites, blogs, and random sites--especially ones that get lots and lots of traffic--using your real (problematic) name. Over time these will be indexed and push your undesirable item down the list.

Post: #13

I heard one gilr google bombing his ex with meme like pictures of him.

Can't this process be applied here? say, like searching for you and finding 2-3 pages of irrelevant, but related results?

Post: #14

Quote:Don't tell girls your real last name.

This isn't about girls. I don't care about what a girl finds out about me. This is about someone like my mum or a future employer reading about my antics whilst travelling. They don't need to know about the sex, drugs and rock n roll.

Quote:If the guy re-posted your full blog post, you can send a DMCA takedown notice to his web host -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Mil...right_Act. If he just posted snippets, you can't. Pictures, may be, may be not. If you do this, it might backfire and you might create more of an issue. You definitely don't want an article in the NYTimes about some grumpy blogger who is fighting a DMCA request.

He posted snippets and a screenshot that shows the first page of my blog complete with picture on it.

Quote:Unless it comes up in the first 10 results on Google when searching for your name, dont worry about it. If it does, just give it some time, or build a blog or webpage (with cool thing about you, and in YOUR control) to push the negative results back.

As I've said at least a couple of times in this thread now it's on the first page of google, result number 4. The guy wrote the article 2 years ago so it may have been on the first page of google for 2 years so far. I don't want it there for much longer. Me building a webpage is all well and good but there's no guarantee I could get it on the first page, is there? And I'd surely need multiple webpages to push it onto the second page.

Quote:It is a dick move, tough... Even if you changed your mind and no longer agree with something you did or said years ago, be proud of who you where, after all it allowed you to become what you are now.

That's all well and good but I don't need my family or a future employer reading a stupid post I made on a blog 2 years ago. It was supposed to be private as I didn't want anyone to read it, was meant for my eyes only to remember the crazy antics.

Quote:Post vanilla comments on news sites, blogs, and random sites--especially ones that get lots and lots of traffic--using your real (problematic) name. Over time these will be indexed and push your undesirable item down the list.

Will this work then? So if I start signing up to major websites and commenting on blogs using my name and mentioning my city (the search that brings the result up is name + city) it would eventually push this blog far up the rankings?

Post: #15

(03-21-2012 12:58 AM)AlphaTravel Wrote:  

Quote:Don't tell girls your real last name.

This isn't about girls. I don't care about what a girl finds out about me. This is about someone like my mum or a future employer reading about my antics whilst travelling. They don't need to know about the sex, drugs and rock n roll.

Quote:If the guy re-posted your full blog post, you can send a DMCA takedown notice to his web host -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Mil...right_Act. If he just posted snippets, you can't. Pictures, may be, may be not. If you do this, it might backfire and you might create more of an issue. You definitely don't want an article in the NYTimes about some grumpy blogger who is fighting a DMCA request.

He posted snippets and a screenshot that shows the first page of my blog complete with picture on it.

Quote:Unless it comes up in the first 10 results on Google when searching for your name, dont worry about it. If it does, just give it some time, or build a blog or webpage (with cool thing about you, and in YOUR control) to push the negative results back.

As I've said at least a couple of times in this thread now it's on the first page of google, result number 4. The guy wrote the article 2 years ago so it may have been on the first page of google for 2 years so far. I don't want it there for much longer. Me building a webpage is all well and good but there's no guarantee I could get it on the first page, is there? And I'd surely need multiple webpages to push it onto the second page.

Quote:It is a dick move, tough... Even if you changed your mind and no longer agree with something you did or said years ago, be proud of who you where, after all it allowed you to become what you are now.

That's all well and good but I don't need my family or a future employer reading a stupid post I made on a blog 2 years ago. It was supposed to be private as I didn't want anyone to read it, was meant for my eyes only to remember the crazy antics.

Quote:Post vanilla comments on news sites, blogs, and random sites--especially ones that get lots and lots of traffic--using your real (problematic) name. Over time these will be indexed and push your undesirable item down the list.

Will this work then? So if I start signing up to major websites and commenting on blogs using my name and mentioning my city (the search that brings the result up is name + city) it would eventually push this blog far up the rankings?

Ok, a DMCA won't work unless the blogger is an idiot. Because what he did is fair use, if you send him a DMCA he could sue you.

I think you have two options, one to pay an SEO/PR company or do it yourself. Look at the "jesse willms" example on Google. You need to register public accounts with your name on major websites like Facebook and Twitter. Start blogs with your personal name & location on every big free blog hosting site. I would suggest making it look as legit as possible, so you have a photography blog, travel blog, whatever hobby, etc. Then register domains for your full name. FirstnameLastname.com is great, but you might have to get creative.

Next spend a good 6+ months commenting on big blogs with your full name linking back to your blogs and other websites.

Your right, this is about more than making one web page. You'll need at least 10 web presences to knock this off of page 1. You may need 30+ to really guarantee its out of view.

Even then, someone who wants to dig further may find it.

If you do all the work yourself, you can probably do this under $1,000, however to make things look legit and not suspicious it will take hundreds of hours of work.

Post: #16

I've not got $1k to spend. Looks like I'll just have to take my chances then. The first result that comes up on google when you search my name + city is a profile I made on SnappyGo (some travel advisor website), I only made this profile about 3 weeks ago. Could I make a load more profiles, same name and same city and would they appear on page 1 of google or is that just random luck that it's the number one search?

Post: #17

I remember reading about this on Reddit. the following post should be relative to your interests:

http://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comme...und_check/

Post: #18

(03-21-2012 03:04 PM)AlphaTravel Wrote:  I've not got $1k to spend. Looks like I'll just have to take my chances then. The first result that comes up on google when you search my name + city is a profile I made on SnappyGo (some travel advisor website), I only made this profile about 3 weeks ago. Could I make a load more profiles, same name and same city and would they appear on page 1 of google or is that just random luck that it's the number one search?

Yes, that would be a good start. I don't know what this other blog is; profiles may be enough.

Post: #19

Here is something I just saw that might help --

http://arstechnica.com/business/news/201...us-seo.ars

Post: #20

(03-21-2012 03:04 PM)AlphaTravel Wrote:  I've not got $1k to spend. Looks like I'll just have to take my chances then. The first result that comes up on google when you search my name + city is a profile I made on SnappyGo (some travel advisor website), I only made this profile about 3 weeks ago. Could I make a load more profiles, same name and same city and would they appear on page 1 of google or is that just random luck that it's the number one search?

Nothing can totally remove such info from the online world, the most you can do is push it out of the first few pages from Google.

If you do want to push it out of the first few pages, just make a ton (50+) of profiles and comments on mainstream blogs, social media sites, and forums. Unless that blog article was really popular it would go down fast. Remember to use your name and home town in the comments and profiles though.

You don't need to spend $1,000 for this nor do will it take 6 months to accomplish. This is your full name + city as the keyphrase FFS. If you don't want to do the manual labor, there's plenty of services for this available on Fiverr.com...

Post: #21

(03-21-2012 03:04 PM)AlphaTravel Wrote:  I've not got $1k to spend. Looks like I'll just have to take my chances then. The first result that comes up on google when you search my name + city is a profile I made on SnappyGo (some travel advisor website), I only made this profile about 3 weeks ago. Could I make a load more profiles, same name and same city and would they appear on page 1 of google or is that just random luck that it's the number one search?

That works, especially if you start building backlinks to those sites as well. You can use profiles, web 2.0 or anything that let's you create an account.

Then maybe sign up for something like backlinksgenie for a month and have it build backlinks to all those sites. Depending on how good that guys SEO is, you will outrank him easily. Make sure you push him down a few pages so no one will find his site for your term.

Post: #22

Quote:there's plenty of services for this available on Fiverr.com...

What should I be searching for on fiver??

Thanks for the links and advice guys. I appreciate it.

These guys look decent and are free: http://brandyourself.com lets see how they work out.

Post: #23

Spent yesterday setting up profiles on every social network and blog site I could find, using the same username for all which is my name + city rolled into one. Used brandyourself.com to optimize them and hopefully that will push a few of them to the top of searches eventually. The guy hasn't responded to my emails.

Post: #24

A good way to flood your results is to join something like Flickr, post images using your name as your username, tag them with your name (as copyright), maybe images of your CITY (also tagged) if that's what's bringing up this result you don't like. All the tags should be everything in that negative result.
Say you're using Flickr to learn photography or share some interesting photos of the city with friends.
There are many sites that piggy back on Flickr so one post to Flickr can equal 4 or 5 links (takes some time for them to find your photo). 100 images after a few months can be a couple hundred results on Google.
Every comment you leave on another persons' photo (given that your username is your name) google will pick this up, again, watch for tags: comment on photos in your city.

Post: #25

(03-23-2012 01:35 AM)AlphaTravel Wrote:  The guy hasn't responded to my emails.

Dont engage the guy or he could make a fuss that pushes him back up.

Either obliterate him with a DMCA or let him get away silently.

If the search that comes up is only your full name PLUS your city, the you have it made. You did well in opening accounts for social networks. Use different profile pictures on everyone of them, as images also get indexed (4 to 5 different cool pictures are enough) Post with some frequency, interlink them (if you open a wordpress.com blog, for example, put links there to every other place) and dont try to build links in one go. You can set up a carousel system where you post comments on relevant blogs and updates on those networks, and not spend more than 30 minutes on that every week for a month, then every month, then forget about it. After a couple of months the negative serach results should be buried back.

Also, try opening a gmail account that uses your name or city in the name and using that to log in to those dummy sites, that could also give you some google traction.