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Over the years I've been sort of refining what you get when you search my name. So if you search for my name on either Google or DuckDuckGo now, the top 5-6 re

by flexd 13y ago

Over the years I've been sort of refining what you get when you search my name. So if you search for my name on either Google or DuckDuckGo now, the top 5-6 results are about me. It's mostly just Facebook/Twitter/GitHub/LinkedIn and other things like that, but they are all me. I guess that is positive when I'm finished with school and need to start applying for jobs :-) I'm not sure it will even pay off, it's not that you need to do that much, just try to get stuff you do not want to show up removed. Covering up something stupid (with any kind of spread) probably isn't going to work. But if you have a completely unrelated result showing up for a hobby of yours that doesn't really need to be on 'your' front page then you can make small edits to make it rank worse. Perhaps remove your name, or write it differently just that one time. Given a bit of time you can end up with only the results you want, provided you aren't known enough for someone to be writing about what you are doing with your life.

lifeisstillgood 13y ago
Silly questions: 1. What is your name ? 2. How do you remove unwanted results? 3. Are you tying all this into your own homepage?
- flexd 13y ago
  My name is Kristoffer Berdal [1] You can't really remove unwanted results, unless they are something you have written yourself, but a lot of those are impossible to remove, most places you can't edit old posts. Besides, I do not think everyone should be held accountable for all the stupid things they wrote on the internet when they were 13 :-) You can create better results. The more positive results you have, the lower the unwanted things will rank. Things like projects, articles you have written and so on. If you can get enough of them ranking high then the unwanted stuff will be 'hidden'. As for tying it into my homepage [2]: I probably should but I haven't so far. It's far from what I want it to be, and mostly just a short introduction and links to my Facebook/Twitter/LinkedIn/GitHub. PS: I know the design is _very_ similiar to Mahdi Yusuf's [3] old design, while I didn't copy anything I feel bad it ended up looking so similar. I should give him credit somewhere since it's what inspired me to make it look much cleaner and minimal than it did before. [1] https://encrypted.google.com/search?hl=en&q=kristoffer%20berdal https://encrypted.google.com/search?hl=en&q=kristoffer%20ber... [2] http://cognitive.io http://cognitive.io [3] http://www.mahdiyusuf.com/ http://www.mahdiyusuf.com/
StavrosK 13y ago
Do you mean your full name? My last name is distinct enough to easily get a whole first Google page about me, but my first name only gets my Twitter account on the second page.
- flexd 13y ago
  Yeah, I mean my full name. I share my last name with a well known Norwegian actor, and she has acted in a few movies with a guy I share my first name with. So whenever there is an article about them, it will pop up in the search for my name. The only thing actually missing when you google my name now is my website.
dubfan 13y ago
What if you happen to share a name with a convicted multi-million dollar Ponzi schemer? It's pretty hard to game Google to ignore all the news reports and .gov pages.
nhebb 13y ago
Well I just googled my name and one of the results is an obituary. I guess I should be getting my affairs in order...
tehwalrus 13y ago
You're lucky. My namesake is a Scottish footballer turned premiership manager - he dominates the first 5-6 pages of google results. I get in there on P6 or so, but it's not even my site (just a popular blog where I authored a couple of posts,) and I can't post links on it to my real identities. If you want to find me, you have to add at least one more word to my name to find the right me. not ideal.
- flexd 13y ago
  That will make it harder yeah. I share my last name with a danish director and a female norwegian actor. The actor has been in a few movies with a guy I share my first name with so they tend to pop up into the results for my name whenever they do another movie.
peterjmag 13y ago
Back in 2002, shortly after GTA3 was released for PC, I started getting involved in its then-fledgling modding community. I created a really basic map mod early on, and then a bit later, I worked on a couple of slightly more advanced things, including a sort of modding tutorial. As the community grew, my stuff started popping up everywhere[1], and a little blurb in some issue of PC Gamer even named me as one of the "pioneers" of GTA3 modding. Fast forward four or five years, and GTA3 related results still dominated Google searches for my name. I was just about to go to college, and I had an initial phone interview for a part time sysadmin job at a small company close to campus. During the call, the owner of the company happened to google me and suddenly went silent. After a few very long seconds, I piped up: "...hello?" "...uh, yeah. So, what's all this about grand theft auto? Were you charged?" It took me a moment to realize what he was seeing, but once I did, I cracked up. I did my best to explain that it referred to a computer game, not a felony. I even tried to turn it into a selling point, using it as an example of how long I'd been hacking, tweaking, etc. I'm not still not sure he was entirely convinced, but nevertheless, he ended up calling me in for a second interview. Today, the top results for my name are a bit more professional: my portfolio site, LinkedIn, Facebook, and so on. However, down near the bottom of the first page, you can still find a reference to my stint as a professional carjacker—uh, I mean as a GTA3 modder. [1] I won't link to them here directly, but if you're curious, it wouldn't take much digging to find my full name and check it out yourself.
- flexd 13y ago
  Haha, that's brilliant :-)

by flexd 13y ago

lifeisstillgood 13y ago

Silly questions: 1. What is your name ? 2. How do you remove unwanted results? 3. Are you tying all this into your own homepage?

flexd 13y ago
My name is Kristoffer Berdal [1] You can't really remove unwanted results, unless they are something you have written yourself, but a lot of those are impossible to remove, most places you can't edit old posts. Besides, I do not think everyone should be held accountable for all the stupid things they wrote on the internet when they were 13 :-) You can create better results. The more positive results you have, the lower the unwanted things will rank. Things like projects, articles you have written and so on. If you can get enough of them ranking high then the unwanted stuff will be 'hidden'. As for tying it into my homepage [2]: I probably should but I haven't so far. It's far from what I want it to be, and mostly just a short introduction and links to my Facebook/Twitter/LinkedIn/GitHub. PS: I know the design is _very_ similiar to Mahdi Yusuf's [3] old design, while I didn't copy anything I feel bad it ended up looking so similar. I should give him credit somewhere since it's what inspired me to make it look much cleaner and minimal than it did before. [1] https://encrypted.google.com/search?hl=en&q=kristoffer%20berdal https://encrypted.google.com/search?hl=en&q=kristoffer%20ber... [2] http://cognitive.io http://cognitive.io [3] http://www.mahdiyusuf.com/ http://www.mahdiyusuf.com/

StavrosK 13y ago

Do you mean your full name? My last name is distinct enough to easily get a whole first Google page about me, but my first name only gets my Twitter account on the second page.

flexd 13y ago
Yeah, I mean my full name. I share my last name with a well known Norwegian actor, and she has acted in a few movies with a guy I share my first name with. So whenever there is an article about them, it will pop up in the search for my name. The only thing actually missing when you google my name now is my website.

dubfan 13y ago

What if you happen to share a name with a convicted multi-million dollar Ponzi schemer? It's pretty hard to game Google to ignore all the news reports and .gov pages.

nhebb 13y ago

Well I just googled my name and one of the results is an obituary. I guess I should be getting my affairs in order...

tehwalrus 13y ago

You're lucky. My namesake is a Scottish footballer turned premiership manager - he dominates the first 5-6 pages of google results. I get in there on P6 or so, but it's not even my site (just a popular blog where I authored a couple of posts,) and I can't post links on it to my real identities. If you want to find me, you have to add at least one more word to my name to find the right me. not ideal.

flexd 13y ago
That will make it harder yeah. I share my last name with a danish director and a female norwegian actor. The actor has been in a few movies with a guy I share my first name with so they tend to pop up into the results for my name whenever they do another movie.

peterjmag 13y ago

Back in 2002, shortly after GTA3 was released for PC, I started getting involved in its then-fledgling modding community. I created a really basic map mod early on, and then a bit later, I worked on a couple of slightly more advanced things, including a sort of modding tutorial. As the community grew, my stuff started popping up everywhere[1], and a little blurb in some issue of PC Gamer even named me as one of the "pioneers" of GTA3 modding. Fast forward four or five years, and GTA3 related results still dominated Google searches for my name. I was just about to go to college, and I had an initial phone interview for a part time sysadmin job at a small company close to campus. During the call, the owner of the company happened to google me and suddenly went silent. After a few very long seconds, I piped up: "...hello?" "...uh, yeah. So, what's all this about grand theft auto? Were you charged?" It took me a moment to realize what he was seeing, but once I did, I cracked up. I did my best to explain that it referred to a computer game, not a felony. I even tried to turn it into a selling point, using it as an example of how long I'd been hacking, tweaking, etc. I'm not still not sure he was entirely convinced, but nevertheless, he ended up calling me in for a second interview. Today, the top results for my name are a bit more professional: my portfolio site, LinkedIn, Facebook, and so on. However, down near the bottom of the first page, you can still find a reference to my stint as a professional carjacker—uh, I mean as a GTA3 modder. [1] I won't link to them here directly, but if you're curious, it wouldn't take much digging to find my full name and check it out yourself.

flexd 13y ago
Haha, that's brilliant :-)