Google Twins & How to be Number 1

Ever do some "Echo Surfing" (search your own name in Google or another search engine) only to find another person with the exact name. While finding a Google Twin may more common for some than others, what happens if that other you represents something you're not and has the potential to damage your reputation. What if a potential employer or client Googles your name and finds them instead and thinks you are them and there are some not nice things out there about them.

This is something that all of us and not just those of us who choose to be in the public eye (like myself) have to start addressing. Think your name is so unique, try Googling yourself with both the correct spelling and common misspellings of your name. I might be the only "Alan K'necht", but there is at least one other "Alan Knecht" out there.

Perhaps, these are some of the reasons that the Canada's National Post reporter Brianna Goldberg, decided to see what happened when she Googled herself and her subsequent drive to dominate the top 10 results for her name on Google.

Her journey to Google domination including quotes and advice from myself and another expert are contained in her article entitled "Google Twins: I want to be number 1" (http://www.nationalpost.com/life/story.html?id=743136).

This article makes a great read and provides lots of useful information. Let's help show the world the power of links by adding the article to your Stumble Upon, Digg, etc. account or better yet, blog about it and link to it with the words "Google Twins"” in the link text.

The First Live WebCast Wedding - Celebrates 10 Years

It's hard to believe that it was 10 years today that the first live broadcasted (webcasted) wedding on the web took place. This wedding was truly original not just by being the first wedding to use Internet technology (others relied on e-mail or the once might IRC), but it was the first to stream a live video and audio stream to a world-wide audience. The wedding was streamed live, but it also integrated gesture based virtual reality into the stream (think Wii 10 years ago, but even better). Back on August 13^th 1998, the concept of streaming anything across a dial-up connection was unheard of. It was a few months later that Victoria Secret rocked the world by streaming their fashion show using a high speed connection.

How do I remember it so well? Easy, I was groom and my wife of 10 years was the lovely bride. At that time in history this was real big news. Several local TV stations were on hand and the wedding was featured on several local (Toronto) 11:00 news shows. On top of that, the netcasted (as it was referred to then instead of webcasted) wedding was featured on several national TV shows and was written up in numerous national publications including Macleans magazine and several international publications as well.

The buzz around this wedding and the wedding's web site, existed long before sites like YouTube or MySpace existed and allowed family and friends to really share in the whole experience even if they couldn't attend. Why am I writing about this now and how does this relate to theme of this blog that's easy to answer. The wedding generated 100's of links to the wedding web site (now archived at www.knecht.ca/algo) and the web site was one of the top search results on any search engine when searching on "wedding" or "netcast" or any other related phrases. Yet over the years, all those links and all but one web reference (http://www.montrealmirror.com/ARCHIVES/1998/122498/august.html) have vanished from the web as if the wedding didn't occur or was never document. So is the life of the Internet and the web. The lesson to learn from this from an SEO perspective is simple – never stop building links to your site. Those great links that exist today might gone tomorrow.

Fortunately, for my wife and me, we have the video clips of the t.v. shows, and copies of the printed articles safely stored away. Recently upload the collection of video clips to the web.