Your Searchable Brand on Google is Finally in Your Control…or is it?

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What if you had preferences as to which results were returned for each keyword you searched for in Google?  Google will be implementing new technology that will allow users to remove results from their personal searches, and move results up or down.  For instance, if you Google’d yourself and had your blog listed 1st and yourname.com 3rd, you could switch them entirely, and even remove your blog listing.  This is obviously bad news for Wikipedia.com, which has purchased almost all keywords and tends to appear in the top three results per keyword you type in.

This is only from your view, but I predict that there will be result voting sometime in the future, as Google collects more of our information for advertisers using the popular AdWords program.

What this means for your personal brand:

First, it may give you the opportunity to increase your Google Quotient, by controlling which results appear on the first page that both exemplify who you are and create a positive PR presence.  Your Google Quotient is the strength of the results listed for your full name, within the first three pages of Google.  Strength is noted as relevancy and the site which speaks of your brand.  Second, as people customize their views, Google’s search engine will become even more credible, as irrelevant content will vanish.   Lastly, there will be a full blown war with “same-name” individuals, such as the John Smith’s of the world, who will purposefully be removing other’s sharing their name.

What do you think this could turn into?   

Picture of Dan Schawbel

Dan Schawbel

Dan Schawbel is the Managing Partner of Millennial Branding, a Gen Y research and consulting firm. He is the New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestselling author of Promote Yourself: The New Rules For Career Success (St. Martin’s Press) and the #1 international bestselling book, Me 2.0: 4 Steps to Building Your Future (Kaplan Publishing), which combined have been translated into 15 languages.

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