# Because we've all done this........ **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [July 28, 2005, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/because-weve-all-done-this/314669 "2005-07-28T23:23:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2005, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/because-weve-all-done-this/314669/1 "2005-07-28T23:23:31Z")
[Link.](http://www.comics.com/wash/candorville/index.html) Vanaity searches can be harsh sometimes. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Baker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bb73d2/32.png) [@Baker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baker)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2005, 12:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/because-weve-all-done-this/314669/2 "2005-07-29T00:22:25Z")
I just typed in my first and last name. There were over a hundred hits, but 90% of them were not about me, they were about people whose first or last name matched mine. Of the ten or so hits that were definitely about me, only one was a surprise. I’ve written a couple of times to a rather well known author, and apparently my correspondence is amongst the files in the Canadian university where the author has deposited letters, manuscripts, etc. ---
**Author:** ![Idlewild](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/8491ac/32.png) [@Idlewild](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Idlewild)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2005, 12:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/because-weve-all-done-this/314669/3 "2005-07-29T00:31:34Z")
Heh, thanks for reminding me that I need to put an author name into the metatags of my website. Currently my google hits are unsurprising but also not terribly useful. ---
**Author:** ![Spatial\_Rift\_47](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a8b319/32.png) [@Spatial\_Rift\_47](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spatial_Rift_47)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2005, 1:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/because-weve-all-done-this/314669/4 "2005-07-29T01:26:44Z")
See, I actually get hits about me, because I have written many articles for my university’s student-run newspaper, which happens to have an online archive of the past several years … okay, so i’m cheating _a little_ ---
**Author:** ![polgatio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/e495f1/32.png) [@polgatio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/polgatio)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2005, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/because-weve-all-done-this/314669/5 "2005-07-29T01:49:36Z")
> [@Baker](#): > > I just typed in my first and last name. There were over a hundred hits, but 90% of them were not about me Ha, about 100 hits for my name (using quotes, otherwise it also displays unrelated things) and all of them are not mine. In fact, all of them are for one guy, who is apparently a moderately successful musician in Canada. Now I’m just looking at stuff on google satalite. ---
**Author:** ![ultrafilter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/3d9bf3/32.png) [@ultrafilter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ultrafilter)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2005, 1:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/because-weve-all-done-this/314669/6 "2005-07-29T01:51:21Z")
Even if I put my name in quotes, I get erotic fiction. It’s bad. ---
**Author:** ![engineer\_comp\_geek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/engineer_comp_geek/32/504_2.png) [@engineer\_comp\_geek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/engineer_comp_geek)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2005, 7:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/because-weve-all-done-this/314669/7 "2005-07-29T07:09:30Z")
I happen to have a fairly unique last name. When my family came over to the US from Greece in the 1920’s, the folks at Ellis Island took one look at the name and said Americans can’t pronounce that. We’re going to have to lose a few letters. If I do a vanity search on my last name, I get links to people I’m related to in America (there’s only about 30 people in America with my last name and I’m related to all of them), and curiously enough, a hotel chain in Finland that happens to have my name from an obviously different lineage. I always wondered if I would get a free room if I registered there. Way back in the early days of the internet I wrote a buch of technical articles about computer busses and other electrical type stuff and made them all freely available. I figured they would be of interest to other hardware hackers, but never thought that there would be too much interest in them. Somehow these things developed a life of their own. There are literally hundreds of copies of these articles all over the web now. Someone even wrote to me asking permission to include them as appendices in a book they were writing, and another large company wrote to me asking if they could include a couple of the articles in technical training manuals for their engineers. This was pretty surprising considering I had only spent a couple of hours writing each article, mostly to give myself something to do while suffering from a bit of insomnia. The first time I did a vanity search I was surprised at how many copies of my articles were floating around the net. About once a year or so I’ll get curious and do another vanity search just to see if they show up anywhere interesting. Just before posting this I did a vanity search and got 750 hits, probably 95 percent of which are either these articles or links to them. One of them is even linked to from Wikipedia (that’s new since the last time I searched). There were also what looked to be a few things I had written on usenet, one page in Finnish (probably that Hotel thing again), and one page in Russian that I have no idea what it was. If I don’t put quotes around my name I get about 5400 hits, which looks to be the roughly 750 hits that really are related to me plus a bunch of hits for that Finnish hotel chain. ---
**Author:** ![Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ccd318/32.png) [@Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paul_in_Qatar)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2005, 7:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/because-weve-all-done-this/314669/8 "2005-07-29T07:53:30Z")
> [@ultrafilter](#): > > Even if I put my name in quotes, I get erotic fiction. It’s bad. So you want me to stop writing that stuff for you? ---
**Author:** ![Garfield226](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Garfield226](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Garfield226)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2005, 8:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/because-weve-all-done-this/314669/9 "2005-07-29T08:01:10Z")
I’m a semi-famous retired pro football player, mostly. Also a photographer, a professor of English in Japan, and a hip-hop gospel singer. ---
**Author:** ![fishbicycle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/aeb1de/32.png) [@fishbicycle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fishbicycle)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2005, 8:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/because-weve-all-done-this/314669/10 "2005-07-29T08:22:59Z")
There’s nothing about me under my own name on the entire web! Somebody with my name is a religious speaker - hundreds of links refer to him. OTOH, there are two pages of references to the name under which I’m known regarding my hobby. My work has been discussed or included on webpages or fora in a dozen countries! I don’t know any of these people and they don’t know me, but my work has taken on a life of its own, and has built a reputation for me. None of the comments are negative! ---
**Author:** ![Ace309](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ace309/32/1050_2.png) [@Ace309](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ace309)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2005, 8:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/because-weve-all-done-this/314669/11 "2005-07-29T08:26:51Z")
I’m a dentist from Indiana if I use my full name. Using my nickname, it’s mostly forgettable stuff relating to me. ---
**Author:** ![Hal\_Briston](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a9a28c/32.png) [@Hal\_Briston](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hal_Briston)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2005, 12:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/because-weve-all-done-this/314669/12 "2005-07-29T12:01:48Z")
The daily comic has changed, so folks might want to start using [this link](http://www.comics.com/wash/candorville/archive/candorville-20050728.html) instead. ---
**Author:** ![VarlosZ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/d78d45/32.png) [@VarlosZ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VarlosZ)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2005, 12:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/because-weve-all-done-this/314669/13 "2005-07-29T12:37:57Z")
There are a couple of links about a famous club DJ in Amsterdam that shares my name. I bet he’s having a lot more fun than I am. ---
**Author:** ![Dante](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dante/32/9673_2.png) [@Dante](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dante)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2005, 1:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/because-weve-all-done-this/314669/14 "2005-07-29T13:23:17Z")
I get 8 bazillion hits, all of them describing me as an NBA player who loses games by calling time-outs my team doesn’t have. How depressing. ---
**Author:** ![Zebra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/c0e974/32.png) [@Zebra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zebra)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2005, 1:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/because-weve-all-done-this/314669/15 "2005-07-29T13:39:19Z")
Nothing but my RSO listing. KIDDING! ---
**Author:** ![Snickers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/5daacb/32.png) [@Snickers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snickers)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2005, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/because-weve-all-done-this/314669/16 "2005-07-29T14:34:47Z")
Poor **Dante**. Hopefully you didn’t go to Michigan, too. ---
**Author:** ![Ludy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/d6d6ee/32.png) [@Ludy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludy)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2005, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/because-weve-all-done-this/314669/17 "2005-07-29T14:50:19Z")
> [@Hal Briston](#): > > The daily comic has changed, so folks might want to start using [this link](http://www.comics.com/wash/candorville/archive/candorville-20050728.html) instead. Ok now I get it :smack: the link was confusing there for a while… 8 hits, all me ---
**Author:** ![norinew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/eb9ed0/32.png) [@norinew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/norinew)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2005, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/because-weve-all-done-this/314669/18 "2005-07-29T15:06:21Z")
Four hits, all me. Three of them related to the work I do in relation to our neighborhood organization. Seriously, I just did it, and have never done that before. ---
**Author:** ![Uncommon\_Sense](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Uncommon\_Sense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Uncommon_Sense)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2005, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/because-weve-all-done-this/314669/19 "2005-07-29T15:07:21Z")
One hit without quotes and none with quotes. The one hit is not me. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![badbadrubberpiggy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/57b2e6/32.png) [@badbadrubberpiggy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/badbadrubberpiggy)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2005, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/because-weve-all-done-this/314669/20 "2005-07-29T15:24:19Z")
64 hits, only one is actually me (being quoted in an article a friend wrote for my college newspaper). The others are of a high school student / recent graduate? who is apparently quite the athlete. She plays tennis, softball, and runs cross country. I’m also quite active in an English Springer Spaniel breed rescue league. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/because-weve-all-done-this/314669.md?page=2)