Learn About YOU on the Internet

Do you know what the world knows about you? That includes your friends, family, strangers, and prospective employers.

If they want to know more about you, they will do an Internet search.

You can see what others will see about you by performing a search in an Incognito browser window. The Incognito setting strips your browser history and personal settings away, and allows for results closer to those a stranger may get. If you're not sure how to open an incognito window (which will be different depending on the browser you use), do a search for that first (i.e., searching for “how to open an incognito window in Chrome”).

Once you've got that incognito window open, search for you by first and last name. Searching with quotations marks around your name will narrow down the results. If you have a common name, adding your town name to the search query will help narrow your results.

The search results will often start with your social media pages, like Facebook or Pinterest. After that, you will see other websites where you name is present in the text. These could be news articles, blogs, directories, etc. Read the headings and excerpts. You may be surprised at what you find in the first few pages of results.

Facebook Privacy Settings

If you have a profile on Facebook, log in and go to your Facebook Home page. That's where people see your profile image, details about you, and what you have recently posted.

To see what people who are NOT on your Friends list will see, click on the ellipses (...) in the lower right corner of your cover image. Then, click on 'View as ...' What is on your screen after that is what the public sees on your Facebook page. There will be a message bar that tells you that at the top of the page.

To update your privacy settings, click here.

It's a good idea to do these kinds of searches a few times a year, and to review all your Facebook settings periodically.