Owning my name on Yahoo!

[bergey]

I've got a bit of a problem, and I'm hoping I'm not posting in the wrong area. I've had some blogs post some negative information about me, and now they show up in the top results in yahoo (when someone searches my name). Does anyone have any suggestions on how I can get my name ranked high on yahoo? I don't have a website; I guess I'm trying to optimize my name.

[Chris Boggs]

Probably your best option in order to outrank your detractors is to actually get a website, such as perhaps a blog, and get cracking on building links to it from other websites. In either case, the best you can probably hope for is to simply outrank the negative sites. Chances of you "getting rid" of them are pretty low.

Another thought: go to popular sites and post comments about yourself including your name. Link to those pages using your name as the link, and hopefully eventually you could push the bad listings down.

This is going to take some serious work on your part, and the best option may be to ignore the issue, and prepare a rebutal if someone "calls you" on the negative listings.

Just my opinion.

[ewc21]

Is the person mentioned you or someone else with same name?

What about getting your personal domain name like www.firstnamelastname.com or any similar variation? Down the road it should be ranked pretty well if the phrase used for searching is your name.

[Chris Boggs]

good point ewc...the URL with just a few well-placed links would be enough to at least garner #1, eventually.

[David Wallace]

First of all I'd recommend reading through Andy Beal's Online Reputation Monitoring Beginners Guide (http://www.marketingpilgrim.com/2006/03/online-reputation-monitoring-beginners.html) and then moving on from there whether you decide to take those steps yourself or actually hire a firm like Andy's to do it for you.

[mphung]

I've got a bit of a problem, and I'm hoping I'm not posting in the wrong area. I've had some blogs post some negative information about me, and now they show up in the top results in yahoo (when someone searches my name). Does anyone have any suggestions on how I can get my name ranked high on yahoo? I don't have a website; I guess I'm trying to optimize my name.

Hi bergey. Boy do I empathize. I had something similar happen -- because of my own stupidity :rolleyes:.

(Here's my little tale of woe. People I work with think this is hilarious, so I hope you get a chuckle out of it too:
http://www.all-about-content.com/2006/01/why-would-i-say-im-comment-spammer.html)

First you need to decide how serious it is. Who are you and what do these sites say? Are people actually conducting searches on your name or is it just a pride thing? (No put down intended. After I put my own incident in perspective I realized I was taking myself too seriously... but then again I wasn't running for elected office or anything).

How many pages are we talking about? Is it just one page that's a problem? Or is it many pages? Do you want to displace the current #1 site or are you looking to dominate the entire first page?

Is it enough just to push the listings off the first page with anything else, or is there specific kinds of content you want coming up in the results? (The difference between pages that are about you and unrelated pages that just happen to have your name on them)

Here are 2 very easy things I'd recommend that don't require building a site:

- create a Blogger account with your full name (just for leaving comments, you don't even have to create your own blog). Add some text to the About Me section written in the 3rd person. Very easy, and you get your name in the title tag. Heck, you can create accounts on Typepad, Technorati, and dozens of others that with some (different) well-written intro blurbs can all rank well.

- leave several comments on other people's blog postings using your full name. A short back-and-forth discussion on a single post gets your name mentioned in the comments section multiple times. Might be enough kwd to get that person's page ranking on searches for your name.

If this is going to cause real problems, as opposed to being just a nuisance or an embarrassment, you'll definitely need to invest in at least a website of your own. Even just two pages will do, since that's the most that you'll probably get ranked on a single SERP from one domain anyway. If, on the other hand it's not a big deal, do what you reasonably can and then just try not to stress about it too much.

Good luck!
Melanie Phung (reformed comment spammer) :)

[mphung]

Just to clarify: my previous post is specific to ranking on a person's name, not a company name. Plenty of great references on this site and others that talk about the latter.

cheers,
mphung