Put your best side at the top of Google

If you haven't yet popped your name into a Google search box to see what turns up, give it a try.

Others will.

A recent survey found that 77 percent of recruiters use search engines to learn more about job candidates. Will they like what they find?

Maybe you started dating that next someone special. Want to bet that he or she is checking online to see if you're as special, or as single, as you say?

Every day, there are upwards of 50 million searches for a proper name, according to Search Engine Watch. People Google themselves, their friends, old school chums, potential new mates, former co-workers and that girl you dated when you were 16.

If your name doesn't pop up somewhere, you live in a cave and have not been seen by anyone in the past 15 years.

Of course, many of us want to see our name somewhere online, and we write blogs, post photos, comment on message boards or write a restaurant review so people notice us. But the messages we like get mixed together with the ones we don't.

Google doesn't care if you're liked, just that you are linked.

So a Chicago start-up, Naymz.com, wants to help you manage what's said about you online by providing some tips and tricks the search-engine pros use.

Namely, they help you link your name to the stuff you want people to see and minimize the impact of content--say, a shirtless photo of you at a kegger--you wish would just go away.

It won't, but you can bury it online with the right tools.

"Companies are out there online trying to protect their brands, and people should be too," said Tom Drugan, one of three former Orbitz employees who started Naymz. "As all of this Web 2.0 stuff keeps surfacing, it's getting more important to address your online identity."

In recent years, the Internet has become a participation festival, what Drugan and others call Web 2.0, where people write blogs or comment about a mean waitress at a disappointing restaurant. Worse, the waitress might write what a cheapskate you are.

Is that what you want people to read?

You may not know how search algorithms work, but Drugan does. And he guarantees your Naymz.com profile page will be at the top of Google's listings when someone searches for your name. It's trickier for common names, but the tips still will improve your online standing, he said.

A Google listing will look like this:

Your Name

Want to learn about me?

Read my profile here!

www.naymz.com

Your profile can have your photo, a short bio of who you are--in your words--and then the links you want to your other online activities.

You can link to your blog, your MySpace profile, to someone else's blog who wrote something flattering about you, to your professional organizations, whatever you want. If you don't mind job recruiters, potential girlfriends or long-lost classmates taking a look, include the link.

"The point is to control your presence online," Drugan said. "It's online marketing for individuals. Look at as your table of contents to the Web."

Naymz, which has been up since June, is targeting professionals--doctors, lawyers, real estate agents--who rely on their name as their brand. But it can help anyone who wants a little more Web control.

What if you don't want to be found online?

"That's not going to happen," Drugan said. "Whoever comes up with a way to get their name out of Google will be a billionaire."

Once you arrived in cyberspace, you're not going away. But you can flood the Web with messages you want.

"Write a few more blogs, post comments on more message boards, put up a Flickr page with photos," Drugan said. Then, using Naymz, you can create links to those pages.

The more links to the stuff you want people to see, the better to help push embarrassing links about you to the second Google listing page.

So take a long look at yourself online. If you don't like what you see, a new employer may not either.

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ebenderoff@tribune.com