How to influence Google Suggest and protect your online reputation

How to Influence Google Suggest and Protect Your Online Reputation

Several years ago, Google added the “Google Suggest” feature to their popular search engine. Attempting to intuitively complete your search phrase as you type, Google Suggest was designed to help people search more efficiently. It can save some typing, help you with spelling and suggest better search phrases. It uses complicated algorithms, so it’s difficult to determine just what Google is using to make this feature work.

Google Suggest seems to combine perceived relevance with search popularity to determine the best words to complete your search phrase. Though it often facilitates faster searches, it does beg the question: Is anything else going on “under the hood” that you should be concerned about? That is, should you worry about privacy protection or how Google Suggest might affect your online reputation? 

Know how to influence Google Suggest in order to mitigate any potential damage it could cause.

Google Suggest: helpful or intrusive?

When one looks more deeply into Google Suggest, it seems like there is a bit more going on than just returning relevant search phrases. In most cases Google Suggest simply offers search suggestions. In a small percentage of randomly selected searches, however, it appears that some data is actually returned to Google, including IP addresses.

Though Google strives to make the data anonymous as quickly as possible, it is logged, at least temporarily. Further, for those who use the Google Toolbar, certain information (like IP address and cookie information) is sent to and saved in Google’s server logs. You might also notice that when you are logged in to your Google account, your Google Suggest results seem different, as if past searches are being considered.

Though these practices are covered in Google’s general privacy policy, there are some actions you can take to help protect your privacy.

Influence Google Suggest so it works for you.

If you want to minimize the amount of data sent to Google while you search, there are a few easy solutions.

• If you have a Google account, you can disable their Web History feature.

• When using Google Toolbar, you can disable the “Provide suggestions for incorrect or unavailable URLs” and “Suggest searches as you type” features. This will prevent certain data from being sent to Google.

Note that if you share a computer, disabling Google’s Web History customizations will affect other people using the same computer. It’s important to remember, however, that Google does store some search engine log data, in compliance with their general privacy practice.

What does Google Suggest say about you?

When using Google Suggest, you’ve probably noticed that it sometimes returns inappropriate, inaccurate or even humorous suggestions. But it’s not so funny if you find out that it uses the word “scam” to complete a search phrase for your name or the name of your business. In some cases you might even find that these negative suggestions appear closer to the top than more positive phrase completions.

Because most people do leave the Google Suggest feature enabled, this kind of negative publicity can harm your online reputation. When people search for your name, negative information is the last thing you want them to find. Negative Google Suggest phrases could cost you customers and clients. In fact, it could even cost you a new job or placement in the school of your choice.

If you find that Google Suggest is completing search phrases involving your name with negative words, it’s important to address the situation.

Can you influence Google Suggest?

You can’t simply contact Google and have them remove information from their search results. After all, Google is merely returning search data and information that already exists on the Internet. Even if Google were able to remove information from their data logs, it would still exist on review websites, blogs and other social media.

In order to prevent data from showing up in search results, it’s first necessary to remove that information from the Web entirely. Then, over time, search engines will stop returning that information in their search results. This is why it’s so important to constantly monitor the Web for negative, erroneous or outdated information about you or your business. Though you might not realize that this information exists, those who search for you online certainly do. Keeping close tabs on your online reputation might be the best thing you can do to influence what Google Suggest has to say about you.

Managing your online reputation

Fortunately, there are many actions you can take to help protect and even improve your online reputation, and influence Google Suggest.

• Being mindful of what you personally post online is very important.

• Never share anything on social networking websites, blogs or other websites that you wouldn’t want your customers, clients or employers to read.

• If you do find negative comments posted about you or your company, you can ask the website owner to remove them.

• You can also help fight negative information by making sure that there’s also plenty of positive information posted by your satisfied customers.