Even before starting this blog I used to Google myself, partly out of vanity and partly from a genuine interest in Search Engines. I figured I knew quite a lot about me, so it was interesting to see how much Google knew.

I used to get lots of results with Hewitt, which used to get me mentally screaming. No NO NO – I am an “E” not an “I”! Recently Google seems to have stopped suggesting I change my name to “Hewitt”, though it still does for Google RealTime.

Currently I am number two my results, with Dreamincode I registered to a while ago, where I made the mistake of using my email address as my username. I actually tried to change it, as I didn’t want my username my email address visible to spammers, but that meant a new account.

Currently the top result is another “Eric Hewett” (not more than one I hear you groan) from Facebook. This is interesting in itself as Google tries to prise more data from behind the Facebook firewall. Then a few more Hewitts including a result for LinkedIn where I am registered as a Hewett.  Then I get my next mention via Quora question and answer site which is getting a lot of coverage in the tech community. These three sites are interesting because they all have high profiles, which I am guessing Google feels gives them added weight and relevance.

Then there is a Twitter result but it’s not me. When I take a closer look this person has never tweeted. It also shows within Google’s search results there isn’t much correlation between their general and real-time/social results. A separate Google RealTime Search currently finds nothing for “Eric Hewett” or “Eric+Hewett – Hewett” and one old result for ehewett, my Twitter user name.

Then we get to this blog. Yippee! I am finally making the front page for my own search results. This has taken some work; regular blog posting, submissions to Twitter, Google Buzz, Digg, StumbleUpon and Reddit, and submissions to Google and Bing’s Web Master Tools.

Over the next few pages of results this blog reappears a few times. Other people’s Twitter accounts appear but not mine. I am not quite sure why this is. In fact my Twitter profile fails to appear on Twitter at all. I get a couple of honourable mentions on StackOverFlow.com and Matt Cutts’s site, but my LinkedIn profile does not appear.

The next result is from boardreader.com, a site I have not heard of before, who have picked up my Google profile. This I find doubly interesting because Google does not seem to give prominence to its own data, i.e. my Google Profile. Secondly, it then picks my profile up from a third-party – bizarre!

As I already knew there is a lot of work in producing a profile within Google’s search results, but some of the results are a little strange. To date I have not tried to generate any back links as I was interested to see how far I could get without them. A future project is do the same searches on Bing and some of the other search engines. I also intend to try to extend my profile to encompass other search terms, but for now it’s back to the coal face!

UPDATE:

I have just seen this post on the Google Operating System Blog. Now Google have just improved their Searches on Google Profiles, though it is not integrated into their main web search. I tried a couple of things out , and it does not appear to be very consistent, but I guess this is a start.