A front-page headline in today’s Wall Street Journal chides: “You’re a Nobody Unless Your Name Googles Well.”
Somebody, somewhere is forming a support group as we speak.
From the story (a WSJ freebie):
In the age of Google, being special increasingly requires standing out from the crowd online. Many people aspire for themselves – or their offspring – to command prominent placement in the top few links on search engines or social networking sites’ member lookup functions. But, as more people flood the Web, that’s becoming an especially tall order for those with common names. Type “John Smith” into Google’s search engine and it estimates it has 158 million results. (See search results.)
For people prone to vanity searching – punching their own names into search engines – absence from the first pages of search results can bring disappointment. On top of that, some of the “un-Googleables” say being crowded out of search results actually carries a professional and financial price.
Don’t mean to brag (which is what people invariably say before bragging), but go ahead and Google “Paul McNamara.”
Yup, that’s me in the No. 1 slot – and it’s a lengthy list. Lands smack dab on Buzzblog, too, ahead of an associate professor at the University of New Hampshire and the CEO of Coghead. (I’ve actually interviewed the latter a couple of times … oh, the confusion.)
Anyway, I suffer from no illusions of grandeur regarding my lofty Google ranking: Write for the world’s No. 1 magazine devoted to the network industry and you, too, may see your Google star rise to the top.
However, I have a colleague named Bob Brown. He, too writes a blog. But not even blogging at Network World can help a guy stand out when he has the fifth most popular surname in the U.S.
Sorry, Bob.
Welcome regulars and passersby. Here are a few more recent Buzzblog items. And, if you’d like to receive Buzzblog via e-mail newsletter, here’s where to sign up.
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Skip this welcome screen, please.
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