Here's some quite analog advice for a digital problem. If you don't appear high enough in organic results when you egosurf, this post advises you to just change your name! There are stories of people doing it, so why not?
Moreover, you can buy your name as a domain (as if common names are still available), buy paid keywords (which doesn't help the original organic results issue), or "create an incredible amount of content" aka spam.
Given that I'm someone with a very common name, I find this advice laughable. The name Peter Kim holds the rank for 43rd most common first name and 233rd most common surname in the U.S. That's out of 1,219 first names and 18,839 last names from the U.S. census. (Yes you have to analyse them together, but this gets the point across, no?)
If your goal is to get higher organic search results, the best answers lie in traditional SEO. Otherwise, just have fun with a site like egosurf.org. And you can always think about podcasting and creating a personal jingle, like George Costanza.
"...Pottery Barn was the first to send them a catalog."
Peter -- THAT is beautiful!!
I just hope American Express doesn't issue them a credit card offer...then you'll be in trouble...LOL!
Posted by: Ann Handley | 20 July 2006 at 12:11 PM
I got to thinking about some of the benefits in having a very common name - perhaps less likely to be a target of identity theft? Tougher to be stalkerati'd?
Tangentially, I moved recently and took the opportunity to change the name on my magazine subscriptions to those of my two dogs. Pottery Barn was the first to send them a catalog.
Posted by: Peter Kim | 19 July 2006 at 09:59 PM
Peter -- At least you don't share your name with a Connecticut politician -- Mary Ann Handley -- who hogs up all my precious Google links! Grrr. Can't wait for elections.
Posted by: Ann Handley | 19 July 2006 at 08:31 PM