Ego-surfing, or searching your name using Google or another search engine, is a common practice among most Internet users. Ego-surfing, however, is not always an egotistical action. Both individuals and companies do this as a means of monitoring online conversations about themselves or their company. This is an excellent way to receive valuable feedback that you may have otherwise been unaware of. It is especially important that job hunters be aware of their Internet presence as well as the presence of those sharing their name as employers can use your online presence to make an employment decision.
In this blog entry we will mainly discuss blogs and websites with and without RSS feeds.
First, blogs and websites with RSS feeds. RSS feeds make it extremely easy to monitor reactions about your blog because you can choose to be notified automatically whenever there is any mention of your or the company name. You can do this by typing your name in any blog search engine (i.e. Google) and subscribe to your news reader's search results feed.
With regard to websites without RSS feeds, the only way to track your name is to go through Google web search. Unlike the blog search, you can't sort results by date and no RSS feeds will turn up in the search results. Fortunately, there is a method to automating this daily routine:
1. Go to Google Advanced Search and select "past 24 hours" in the date field. This is to filter out all posts from more than 24 hours ago.
2. Type your name enclosed in quotation marks in the search box. Also include any common misspellings separated using the OR operator.
3. Copy the Google URL in the address bar and paste that into the search box at Page2RSS.com. This will create a RSS feed of your search results that you can subscribe via email or any news reader.
Doing this will ensure that anything mentioning your name will be sent to your inbox or RSS reader, helping you to effectively and efficiently keep tabs on conversations surrounding you and your business.
Web sources:
http://www.labnol.org/internet/search/googling-yourself-or-ego-surfing-with-google/1861/
http://www.ojr.org/ojr/ethics/1017964102.php
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