Who Has Been Googling You?

Looking up information about old classmates, co-workers, or the daughter's new boyfriend online has become so popular with internet users that the term "Googled" made its way into our vernacular. This makes many of us begin to wonder who has been Googling us.

It's easy to keep track of when someone posts online information or comments about us by registering with Google Alerts. Supply your email address, and Google will notify you when your name shows up online. Of course, other people probably share your name, so often that newly posted information or blog entry won't be about you.

Users of social sites, such as MySpace, sometimes insert code into their pages, in an attempt to monitor who is checking out their profile. Some of these codes may actually violate the social site's term of service (TOS), or cause other phishing mischief, and users often complain that they don't work. Before purchasing services which claim to monitor visitors to your profile, it is advisable to check the company's credibility and discover if you will be violating your social site's TOS.

Websites, such as Classmates, let users know how many visitors have checked their profile, yet unless the visitor signs the page, it leaves Classmate users wondering who stopped by.

Webmasters can use traffic monitoring programs to discover locations of their visitors and search terms used to find the site. When monitoring your personal or business website, it would be possible to discover if your name was one of the search terms.

There are also live chat programs which can be installed on web pages. After inserting the chat code, a chat box appears on the page, and the webmaster can monitor when a visitor enters that page, and the identity of the visitor's location and IP address. Some programs allow the webmaster to instantly send the visitor a pop-up message. Suddenly the anonymity of the surfer is redefined. Although there are free chat programs for websites, most programs that provide monitoring of visitors require a monthly fee.

Some individuals, who are seriously concerned about who is looking, have been signing up with Ziggs.com, which promises users the ability to discover when someone has been searching their name. The theory is that Ziggs will help you take control of your online identity, and by using the program you will discover when someone is searching your name, and that searcher's geographical location, along with the search terms used.

While there are options to discover the location of someone who has been searching our name, many people might actually be disappointed to discover their name hasn't been Googled.