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A recent feature on Computerworld.com, discusses the possibility of permanently erasing your digital past. The common
understanding is that once something is on the Internet, it is
forever, which is why college students are advised to use
discretion when it comes to posting drunken pictures of
themselves on their MySpace pages.

Suppressing negative search engine results is an industry unto
itself, and it is called online reputation management. Whole
companies are devoted to this, as sort of a mix of online PR and
a little ranking manipulation of certain pages that clients
would like to see disappear.

But is it possible to make pages disappear for good? It is, but
traditional methods of reputation repair, like litigation,
don’t work as well in this case. The best thing to do,
according to a Google spokesperson, is to “contact the
webmaster of the page or the Internet hosting companies or
ISP’s hosting the content to find out their content
removal policies.”

Common sense would dictate that you use discretion when adding
or lending your name to causes, forum posts, and organizations,
but if factors out of your control result in less than desirable
search engine results in your name, you may want to consider a
little online reputation management of your own, whether through
a company or by directly contacting the source. Mistakes can
happen, and it is nice to know that we might not, necessarily,
have to suffer for them forever in the vast information matrix
of the Internet.

Related articles on Online Reputation Management

• What does your reputation say about you?
• Revising Your LinkedIn Profile: Who’s Looking at YOU?
• Search Engine Reputation Management (SERM) Market Size?