Guaranteed Removal recommends you take time to clean your background annually. In this article, we reveal 5 specific ways to clean your background. Your online reputation is one of your most valuable assets, whether you are an individual or a company. It is a known fact that people look up things they want to know about online, and what they find affects their opinion. This is why you need to know how to clean your background, particularly if there are some less than positive things to be found there. Let’s take a look at the 5 key ways to do that.

1. Conduct a Monthly Check of the Search Engines

You cannot perform a background clean-up if you don’t know what is there. This is why you need to make a point of searching for your name on Google at least once a month.

“To find out what people are saying about you, search for your business on all the major search engines. Also, check industry-related community websites for mentions that may not show up on a major search engine but are still relevant to your customer base. Consider setting up an RSS feed or an automatic alert to help track this information.”

2. Try to Bury the Negative Information

One of the greatest geek jokes asks where you should bury a dead body. The answer is “on the 3rd page of Google”. That may be a joke, but that it is also true. About 75% of people who go online never look beyond the first page of search results, so if you can make sure that whatever negative information exists about you doesn’t appear there, it is as good as being gone.

Scott Allen, co-author of The Virtual Handshake: Opening Doors and Closing Deals Online, advocates burying the bad with the good. That means creating new content about yourself, such as a blog or Web site. “It’s not that you can make the stuff disappear,” he says. “It’s that you make so much more good stuff that you can’t find the bad stuff.”

3. Avoid Getting a Bad Reputation in the First Place

The internet is a giant open space in which you can say and do anything. This makes keeping a clean background difficult. But you do have to be prepared to accept that those things can come back to you. You must, therefore, exhibit online behavior that is reflective of how you want others to see you.

“Approach all online interactions with your manners at the forefront. Have the attitude that most people are acting in good faith and the stupid things said online are often a result of not thinking, making errors or simply having an off-moment.” (Learn more about reputation management guide)

4. Manage Online Reviews

This is particularly important for businesses. Reviews can make or break your business. Therefore, while you should welcome them, you should also manage them properly.

“Considering that 84 percent of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations, having a large number of positive reviews can be a huge competitive advantage.”

5. Don’t Allow Others to Tag You

This one is particularly important for individuals. You need to control what is out there about you and that means you shouldn’t allow others to post things that involve you. Those selfies taken at that drunken party may have been a great idea at the time, but you don’t want a prospective employer to find them. Hence, you need to make sure that people can’t automatically tag you.

“And tagging doesn’t only refer to embarrassing pictures of you. Sometimes well-meaning friends decide to tag you in a picture of them engaging in behavior that should have been kept private.”

With these five key steps, you should be able to have a clean background online, after which you can make more efforts not just to keep it clean, but actually make it look even better. If you’d like more information on this, here’s a 3-minute video from an attorney explaining how to clean up a criminal record.

Contact us today and discover how Guaranteed Removal will clean for thousands of Americans.

Have you ever searched for yourself on Google? Surprisingly, the vast majority of people in this country don’t do that often enough. That can be a problem because there is a big chance that the things you find when you look yourself up are surprising, and not in a good way.

The co-founder of BrandYourself.com struggled to find a job because he was showing up as a criminal with the same name on Google. If you create a strong online presence it is less likely you will pop up as the criminal who robbed a bank at the quick mart.

Google Searches May Negatively Effect Your Reputation

A recent study shows that of 1,000 adult Americans:

1. 24% of adults (43% of millennials) had experienced the negative effects of information about themselves on the internet.
2. 20% found information to be inaccurate.
3. 33% saw content that belonged to them had been spread without their permission.
4. 12% were unhappy about the information they found about themselves.

Even those who do not identify with any of the above statistics are likely to worry that they might one day. Indeed, more than 50% of all adults and more than 65% of all millennials worry that information that is placed on the internet about them could have a negative impact on their overall reputation. And they are right to think this way. Most of us, when we want to know something, will head to Google, whether that is to find information about a business or about an individual. The recent survey also showed that 42% of all adults (57% of millennials) changed their opinion about people because of the information they found online.

Google Searches Impact Those Applying for Work

The importance of Googling yourself cannot be stressed enough, as was recently mentioned by BestColleges.com, particularly for those looking for work.

“Checking up on applicants’ social media profiles is becoming routine for many employers and admissions offices around the country. Recruiters say social media helps them gain a more comprehensive picture of a candidate than a simple resume and cover letter. Depending on how they view what they find, an applicant’s web presence can make or break an offer. This is especially true for students or recent graduates lacking a detailed job history to support their application.”

The BestColleges.com research showed that:

1. 70% of employers turned down an application due to online information about them.
2. 84% of employers believe that online information will further drive decisions over the next five years.

Clearly, people need to Google themselves to allow them to control the narrative. Yet, very few people do. Indeed, the research showed that:

1. 60% of people never Google themselves.
2. 47% Google themselves, but no more than twice per year.
3. Just 7% have a Google alert on their own name.
4. Only 5% of people have invested in reputation management software.

To add, 77% of those who have experienced a negative impact as a result of information about them online now Google themselves regularly. However, this also means that they waited too long.

Experts agree that people should immediately perform the following steps:

1. Google yourself at least once a month.
2. Search for yourself on social media at least once a month.
3. Regularly check the court records.
4. Fix any mistakes that you find.
5. Create lots of positive information about yourself.
6. Set up Google alerts for your own name.

Contact us today if Google reveals troubling information.

For more information, here’s an 8-minute video that explains how to remove articles from the internet and Google.