This seems like more of a problem when you have a more obscure name. I think Google is becoming less and less effective as more and more people use the internet

This seems like more of a problem when you have a more obscure name. I think Google is becoming less and less effective as more and more people use the internet and you get name collisions. It becomes harder to tell if the person whose name you googled is the actual person being referenced or not. At one point I knew all the links on the first page of Google were me - now it's about half. The less you use your real name the more that helps as well as the other people who share your name float to the top.