dandelions about you

A co-worker of mine recently googled her name and came across a myspace page that said she was a “fucking whore.” She totally flipped. The myspace profile belongs to somebody else with the same name (it really does), so unfortunately there’s not much she can do about it. But what about those false claims on the web about the real you? Well, it seems it’s not so easy to get those down either.

Mark Cutts, head of Google's Webspam team, recently wrote about “Why Google won’t remove that webpage you don’t like.” He says that regardless of whether Google takes down the page, it still exists in the wider web. (Yes, Google is not the only search engine.) So if someone is posting major dandelions, spinning and twisting your words, he offers two ways to fix it:

1) Either contact whoever put up webpage B and convince them to modify or to take the page down.
2) Or if the page is doing something against the law, get a court to agree with you and force webpage B to be removed or changed.

I can’t say I’m keen on either option merely because the end result is not up to you. In option 1 you’re pleading with mr snarky, anonymous poster for retracting something he said that you claim is untrue. What does he care? And in option 2, you’re left with paying a lawyer plenty of money to plead to a court that may or may not judge in your favor. Think of all the money and time you could potentially lose because of mr snarky! So, why be dependent on others when you can take the matter on yourself?

I find that the best way of catching the dandelion is by exposing the false claim on your own site (that’s the beauty of the web) and making snarky, anonymous poster regret he ever messed with you. What I wouldn’t do is ignore it completely or rely on others to do it for you.