Astroturfing your own name in Google?

Question

Ideally, when a prospective employer or client googles you or your companies name, they get the most relevant things first. However, this is rarely the case. In a perfect world, if I were able, I would have my first 5 hits be some order of my website, twitter, linkedin, github etc.

Right now its a hodgepodge of social networking profiles and mailing lists, changelogs on software etc.

I have control over my own website and can fiddle with the seo there obviously, but how can I promote the importance of say, my github profile over say, a 3 year old reply to some mailing list?

Answer 1

In your github profile you could use rel="me" to link to your own site

<a href="http://myname.com/" rel="me">my site</a>

More details at http://microformats.org/wiki/rel-me (it needs to be bidirectional). Google are also experimenting with new markup to indicate authorship.

Answer 2

I've played with this myself and have at least gotten most of my stuff on the first page when I keep up with it, if not the first few links.

One of the things I found in my research was that links to your page (whether it's LinkedIn, Twitter, etc) and out of it help rank it up. Also, recent updates help, as well. Therefore, share and writing stuff meaningful enough to be shared, and make sure you're active in your stuff and update it frequently (this is probably the hardest part, because it's the most time-consuming in the long run).

I also link between everything in order to make sure it's all connected (so people can verify that the accounts are all me). If you have any kind of design skills, creating a logo that you can use as an avatar for everything can help solidify the brand recognition, as well.

I've found it helps to flesh out your Google profile if you have a Google account, as that's likely to be among the top almost by default. The same goes for your other profiles. Make sure they're filled out with the relevant information, so Google sees the recent update and the fact that there's actually something meaningful there.

Make sure your name is prominent somewhere in the main/profile page of each site, too (ideally, in the URL, too). You didn't mention what your website's URL is, but if you can get it, get a domain in your name (yourname.com, for example). If you have the money, getting different variations (yourname.me or whatever) and redirect them to a central site can help, too.

Answer 3

There's no instant-fix solution, but you could:

• Build up backlinks to the services you want Google to feature by blogging, guest-blogging, and filling in profile information containing those links for as many sites as you can. Paul's suggestion to use the rel=author attribute in links is a good one; if Google doesn't know they're related to your name, it won't show those sites in search results.
• Remove stale accounts for services you no longer use. Some forum software requires moderator approval to delete your account, but it's worthwhile clearing up old references to your name or username, especially if those sites are long established.
• Work under a new persona, brand name, or pen name. Instead of trying to fight Google by recrafting your existing name and reputation, consider creating a unique persona, company, or pen name to work under. You can then brand each service (e.g. Github) with that unique name, which gives you a much better chance of being able to control the likely search results. Be careful to keep this separate from any personal accounts and identities you use.