Participation 4: Google Michelle Wright

Fortunately or unfortunately, when you google 'Michelle Wright,' my results are polluted by those of Canadian country music superstar Michelle Wright. Even several pages in, I still do not see any content that belongs to me. This could be good if I do not want future employers to see any of my online activity, but it could also be bad if I wanted to brand myself and market my own online persona.

When you google 'Michelle Marie,' another name that I frequently go by online (cough Facebook cough), absolutely no content belonging to me comes up. Apparently, 'Michelle Marie' is a generic and popular name.

Because I am a journalism student and I do want to have an observable online presence, I consistently use 'mwright216' to set myself apart. When I googled 'mwright216,' content related to the real Michelle Wright did come up! And because 'mwright216' is much more specific, only 4 pages of results showed up on this search. The first few links were my Twitter (and YFrog from posting pictures to Twitter), the next few were for Pinterest, and the others were Tumblr posts from awhile ago. Noticeably absent were: Facebook, LinkedIn, G+, and all Badger Herald articles from back in the day. Facebook is absent because I do not use 'mwright216' for anything on there other than my email address log-in. However, my LinkedIn is linked to my Twitter, so I am not sure why it did not show up when I googled 'mwright216.'

Overall, I feel good that I am not haunted by freshman year Facebook photos, but I am a bit worried that my LinkedIn did not show up at all. Because my name is apparently not original, and is stolen by a Canadian country superstar, it seems that I could have a problem in unifying a branded identity on the internet.