Facebook - Think twice before posting ANYTHING online

[DisneyDayTripper]

So a little bit ago I was trying to go to my wife's profile on facebook and instead of going through my profile to get to her I searched her name and we found out that facebook has added a Bing search to the results. My wife has a very rare name with the spelling and what not, so when you search for her name at the bottom it shows up all the web results from her posting. Because her screen name on a forum is her first name, all of the posts from that website come up when you search through facebook. She has loved using the other forum because she has a group of online friends she is able to talk about things she wouldn't talk about with other people (like family frustrations and what not, I'm sure you all understand)...anyway...so now she is worried if someone searches for her name then that website will come up.

So just a heads-up you may want to search for your name on facebook and check out the web results at the bottom of the page and see what comes up. We found results from 5k's that we've done and what not. Just seems a little stupid to have that on facebook.

 

[harleyquinn]

Weird. I just tried it with a bunch of different people and didn't get anything from Bing...

 

[DisneyDayTripper]

When we do it, it shows the friends, then recent postings by that friend and then at the bottom it says "Web Results" and lists a bunch of websites that may or may not be anything that are related to the person you searched, but in our case it a forum with her postings being the link to click on. At the very bottom after it lists the websites it says "powered by Bing.com"

All I know is Bing.com sucks and I'd never use it over Google or Yahoo

 

[snowy76]

That's not necessarily a FB issue. If your wife has accounts on other sites without a lot of privacy settings they'll pop up on any search engine. Same for the 5K results - if a running club or charity posts results online, your name will be out there for anyone to Google, Bing etc.

 

[damo]

If you change the privacy settings, you can't be searched.

 

[KristaTX]

Funny. Who knew I was a penthouse pin-up .

The only real site about me that comes up is one for class reunions. I don't use my real full name anywhere else except there and Facebook.

 

[monkey68]

The first hit that comes up on my name is something from the National Association of Steel Pipe Distributors. Didn't know I was there.

Actually, all the hits that came up, none of them have anything to do with me, just happens that someone with my first name and someone with my last name were at the same place.

 

[tink_n_pooh]

Maybe I'm just a geek but I google my own name, my families names, and my friends names when I get bored

I'm a well known doctor in Ireland who comes up on a website about cervical checks, a Australian Rugby player, an Australian radio host, and some manager for an Australian security & investments commission

My online life is by far more exciting than my real life

 

[funkychunkymonkey]

14 people with my name on facebook alone, im not worried.

 

[kafitty]

she should check on the forum if there are privacy settings for protecting her posts.

 

[meloneyb21]

She should go to her privacy settings. There is a box that you can either check or uncheck and it gives you the option of whether you want your facebook profile to be searchable by public search engines.

 

[FireDancer]

In Facebook only postings on public pages are indexed in search. If someone posts on the page of someone without any viewing restrictions than Google or Bing will index the page.

As far as other forums, yes, forums that allow bots to cache and then crawl the page will show up in search results. Sometimes this is a setting in a user profile and sometimes it is a setting only the webmasters of the forum can control. Often times a forum wants to be indexed so it comes up higher in search results which results in more add revenue as the click through rate goes up.

As far as race results, those are almost always indexed and searchable. If you search my name you will find 5 to 6 Google pages of race results because it makes no sense for a webmaster to keep their results page from being crawled.

In life in general, and Facebook in particular, I live by the adage that anything I post will be online somewhere forever. In posting to Facebook I assume that my employer (I am friends with some coworkers) or a future employer can look at it and don't post anything I wouldn't want them to see.

 

[Maridw]

I found out I am a politian in Ottawa Canada, a furniture store in the UK and an Assistant Professor. I have a fairly common name.

When I use my maiden name, I only get things related to posts I made on a genealogy forum.

There are 3972 profiles on MySpace and 1272 profiles on FB with my married name.

 

[Andrea]

You can google someone user name and find out which message boards they are all. Not this screen name i have but the one i use on every other board. Just type it in google and pulls up a ton of message boards i am on.

 

[wvdisluv2]

I NEVER post anything on the internet that I wouldn't want my Parents or Employer to know about~That is "elementary internet" in my opinion.....

 

[Terry36]

You can google someone user name and find out which message boards they are all. Not this screen name i have but the one i use on every other board. Just type it in google and pulls up a ton of message boards i am on.

OMG you're right...I just tried it.

I NEVER post anything on the internet that I wouldn't want my Parents or Employer to know about~That is "elementary internet" in my opinion.....

Ditto.

 

[Smbdyscrm]

Maybe I'm just a geek but I google my own name, my families names, and my friends names when I get bored

My online life is by far more exciting than my real life

I'm the same kind of geek!

My name is VERY unique here in the U.S. and I only get info about myself and other family members if I google me.

 

[BeenHereB4]

Wow! Lots of people with my new married name come up - many with some "interesting" photos on MySpace (New Zealand) and Google images.

My old married name is uncommon but when used together bring up lots of celebrity charity concerts, etc. You'd probably have to go to page 1000 of the search results to find anything related to me (like the OP, probably some race results and such).

My maiden name does bring up some reviews I wrote on Amazon.

 

[BeenHereB4]

Ooooh!!! I'm a contemporary gospel singer too. woohoo!!

 

[maroo]

I NEVER post anything on the internet that I wouldn't want my Parents or Employer to know about~That is "elementary internet" in my opinion.....

You never know who is going to read it.

I found out my cousin is a DIS addict, too. I didn't even know she was a Disney fan. So you never know! Even on the DIS!