Danger, Danger!
1 Comments Published by Oh Wayward One on 29 November 2005 at 11/29/2005 05:59:00 pm.
I just had the most pants-shitting experience.
I have to write about it to preserve my ignorance and relief for posterity so that I will always remember to be thankful and lend good karma to the universe for ever and ever amen.
Normally when I write a blog entry I drop people's last names or disguise places somehow. Because I'm paranoid of Google. Google really freaks me out... being able to type someone's name in and FIND THEM or what's worse, find something someone has written ABOUT them... holy hell that's just freaky if you think about the possible implications. Hell, just look how many people *I*'ve stalked through damn google!
It's simple, you write something into your blog, someone googles it/him/her/your words, they FIND YOU!
One day, in the not-so-distant past, I got lazy. A couple last names (um, namely MINE) got left into a typical everyday average journal entry in my blog. Just sheer laziness. Every so often, I google my own name ('cuz I'm onto the game, like). This whole thing with some local guy killing his wife has gotten me googleing the shit out of my hometown and prominent people in it that I know he knew... and THANK GOD I did it on my own name recently, because lo and behold what was staring me in the face there? Google entries 1 and 2... entries from my bloggy bloggerton!!! OH BALLS!!! FRIGGIN BOLLOCKS OF FIRE!!!!
One might think at this stage "what the hell does it matter if her name is googleable or not?" Well dammit billy, I'll tell ya. My family, my co-workers, my estranged friends AND SO ON are often the butt of my ravenous rantings and quite frankly, I prefer to wait until I'm dead for them to find out how I REALLY feel... heh heh, talk about wuss-bag. Yeah, I know. I have no balls. I like to tap-dance on the fine line between anonymity and ballsy.
Jesus Christus Imagine the heart faliure my mother would have at my profane language... dude, I can just NOT HANDLE that at this stage of my life. And oh boy howdy let me tell you, she is SO googling my ass on a bi-monthly (or so?) basis.
So there it was: my blog address staring me in the eyeballs right there up at the top of our old friend Google. Of course, my first thought was myself and the implications this could have on me. As you do.
Wait. It gets even more disasterous:
There, in plain google print, was the names of TWO count em TWO of my co-workers!!! AGHH!H!!!
Say it aint so!!!!!
Sure enough, I googled both of THEIR names, and CRIKEY there's my blog AGAIN!!!!
And let me tell you, one of these yabbos is totally incidental, totally ego-less, totally naive and wonderful. The other one? An arrogant egomaniac prick who probably sits around googling himself every hour on the hour, just in hopes that someones started up their own fansite for him. Also featured prominantly in my various "profound grievence" rants from time to time. This is SO not good. Man if THIS guy found out I had a blog, I'd have to delete it.
So I did some research: How to get yourself the F*CK off of google!!!
Turns out?
You:
1.) Delete the 1 page that keeps coming up in google results, from your blog.
2.) Wait it out. Eventually these little searching robots will keep searching for your page after it's deleted, and give up. This could take somewhere in the realm of 6 months. In the meantime, a cache of your deleted page will STILL come up when someone googles the words on it, (but when they click on the link, they'll see "error 404: file not found" or some other rubbish). Not only that, but they'll see the actual root link to the rest of your blog, which can subsequently be typed into your www. address bar and off they go to see the remainder of your posts. Not good enough.
To which my reaction was: Oohhhhhhhh f*ckkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk. I totally dont have 6 months to wait it out. Oh hell no.
So more research ensued: through google of course. Turns out, there are options! A ha! Some of which are:
1) You can open up a google account and ask for the deleted page to be completely removed, a very simple process which just involves giving them your email address to which they'll send you a confirmation number, which you enter into a webpage along with the exact http: address/page name that appears on google when you do a search on (whomever's) name/string of words/whatever. They'll remove it in 5 working days. Or so. (eye roll)
2) You can put a simple line of code into the properties of your blogspot page, which tells all the google robots to never search your blog anymore, so no matter what you type in it, no one can google it! A ha! Blogging freedom altogether!!
However, with this option, the offending cached page keeps coming up on google search results .... at least not til the 6months or whatever have passed... which wouldn't help much as long as that hasn't disappeared... you have to get that page OUT OF GOOGLE!!! (see option 1).
So anyway, I did it all. I applied to have the one offending page removed.
PLUS I entered the line of code, so that my future entries would be google-proof.
Plus I entered a BONUS line of code which even makes them "other-search-engine-type"proof!
PLUS I entered ANOTHER line of code which even stops the searchy-robots from following LINKS to other LINKS on my pages! ha ha! I GOT you Google!!
Then came the (supposedly) 5 working-day waiting period. Oh my god talk about living your life in a haze of paranoia. Every day I just WAITED for the "you can count your no-good, ungrateful, blogging ass out of the inheritance!" email from my mother. Or the "what the feckin' hell did you write about me on the internet?!?" verbal abuse from some co-worker or boss or estranged roommate or... whatever.
_whew_
OK it took 7 days. Not 5. But there it was. Finally. GONE. Google-free. I searched, and HEY no more waywardchildwestra to be found. It was less than 5 days ago, to be nearly precise.
Fast forward to 2 days ago.
Sitting at the computer with egotistical prick /friend. Yes. THAT ONE. One of the ones from the offending blog. We're designing something and trying to come up with the appropriate terminology we need. We have a discussion about what you would find if you looked for a particular word on an internet search engine. He googles that word just to show me. While we're on the subject he says: "did you know you can even google people?"
. . . oh hell no. . .
"did you ever google yourself?"
. . .yeah, blah blah blah, as if you're the first friggin brainchild to come up with that idea. blah blah steering the conversation AWAY from where it could be headed, as best I can. . .
"did you know I'm the only ____name in the world?? Seriously, I've googled myself before (yeah no KIDDING) and there's no other ________ that come up! CHeck it out!"
. . .pregnant pause. . . jill holds her bowels. . .
tap-tap-tappity-tap into the search engine. . .
*click*
. . . NOTHING.
he's right, there are no others like him in the google machine.
my bowels proceed to release themselves and I nearly fall out of the chair. I'm a quivering mound of jelly and I nearly blow chunks.
It's been over 24 hours and I STILL shake when I re-think the whole thing.
Now you tell me, what the FUCK would I have done if it had happened 5 days ago, HUH?!?
Blogging is dangerous.
I have to write about it to preserve my ignorance and relief for posterity so that I will always remember to be thankful and lend good karma to the universe for ever and ever amen.
Normally when I write a blog entry I drop people's last names or disguise places somehow. Because I'm paranoid of Google. Google really freaks me out... being able to type someone's name in and FIND THEM or what's worse, find something someone has written ABOUT them... holy hell that's just freaky if you think about the possible implications. Hell, just look how many people *I*'ve stalked through damn google!
It's simple, you write something into your blog, someone googles it/him/her/your words, they FIND YOU!
One day, in the not-so-distant past, I got lazy. A couple last names (um, namely MINE) got left into a typical everyday average journal entry in my blog. Just sheer laziness. Every so often, I google my own name ('cuz I'm onto the game, like). This whole thing with some local guy killing his wife has gotten me googleing the shit out of my hometown and prominent people in it that I know he knew... and THANK GOD I did it on my own name recently, because lo and behold what was staring me in the face there? Google entries 1 and 2... entries from my bloggy bloggerton!!! OH BALLS!!! FRIGGIN BOLLOCKS OF FIRE!!!!
One might think at this stage "what the hell does it matter if her name is googleable or not?" Well dammit billy, I'll tell ya. My family, my co-workers, my estranged friends AND SO ON are often the butt of my ravenous rantings and quite frankly, I prefer to wait until I'm dead for them to find out how I REALLY feel... heh heh, talk about wuss-bag. Yeah, I know. I have no balls. I like to tap-dance on the fine line between anonymity and ballsy.
Jesus Christus Imagine the heart faliure my mother would have at my profane language... dude, I can just NOT HANDLE that at this stage of my life. And oh boy howdy let me tell you, she is SO googling my ass on a bi-monthly (or so?) basis.
So there it was: my blog address staring me in the eyeballs right there up at the top of our old friend Google. Of course, my first thought was myself and the implications this could have on me. As you do.
Wait. It gets even more disasterous:
There, in plain google print, was the names of TWO count em TWO of my co-workers!!! AGHH!H!!!
Say it aint so!!!!!
Sure enough, I googled both of THEIR names, and CRIKEY there's my blog AGAIN!!!!
And let me tell you, one of these yabbos is totally incidental, totally ego-less, totally naive and wonderful. The other one? An arrogant egomaniac prick who probably sits around googling himself every hour on the hour, just in hopes that someones started up their own fansite for him. Also featured prominantly in my various "profound grievence" rants from time to time. This is SO not good. Man if THIS guy found out I had a blog, I'd have to delete it.
So I did some research: How to get yourself the F*CK off of google!!!
Turns out?
You:
1.) Delete the 1 page that keeps coming up in google results, from your blog.
2.) Wait it out. Eventually these little searching robots will keep searching for your page after it's deleted, and give up. This could take somewhere in the realm of 6 months. In the meantime, a cache of your deleted page will STILL come up when someone googles the words on it, (but when they click on the link, they'll see "error 404: file not found" or some other rubbish). Not only that, but they'll see the actual root link to the rest of your blog, which can subsequently be typed into your www. address bar and off they go to see the remainder of your posts. Not good enough.
To which my reaction was: Oohhhhhhhh f*ckkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk. I totally dont have 6 months to wait it out. Oh hell no.
So more research ensued: through google of course. Turns out, there are options! A ha! Some of which are:
1) You can open up a google account and ask for the deleted page to be completely removed, a very simple process which just involves giving them your email address to which they'll send you a confirmation number, which you enter into a webpage along with the exact http: address/page name that appears on google when you do a search on (whomever's) name/string of words/whatever. They'll remove it in 5 working days. Or so. (eye roll)
2) You can put a simple line of code into the properties of your blogspot page, which tells all the google robots to never search your blog anymore, so no matter what you type in it, no one can google it! A ha! Blogging freedom altogether!!
However, with this option, the offending cached page keeps coming up on google search results .... at least not til the 6months or whatever have passed... which wouldn't help much as long as that hasn't disappeared... you have to get that page OUT OF GOOGLE!!! (see option 1).
So anyway, I did it all. I applied to have the one offending page removed.
PLUS I entered the line of code, so that my future entries would be google-proof.
Plus I entered a BONUS line of code which even makes them "other-search-engine-type"proof!
PLUS I entered ANOTHER line of code which even stops the searchy-robots from following LINKS to other LINKS on my pages! ha ha! I GOT you Google!!
Then came the (supposedly) 5 working-day waiting period. Oh my god talk about living your life in a haze of paranoia. Every day I just WAITED for the "you can count your no-good, ungrateful, blogging ass out of the inheritance!" email from my mother. Or the "what the feckin' hell did you write about me on the internet?!?" verbal abuse from some co-worker or boss or estranged roommate or... whatever.
_whew_
OK it took 7 days. Not 5. But there it was. Finally. GONE. Google-free. I searched, and HEY no more waywardchildwestra to be found. It was less than 5 days ago, to be nearly precise.
Fast forward to 2 days ago.
Sitting at the computer with egotistical prick /friend. Yes. THAT ONE. One of the ones from the offending blog. We're designing something and trying to come up with the appropriate terminology we need. We have a discussion about what you would find if you looked for a particular word on an internet search engine. He googles that word just to show me. While we're on the subject he says: "did you know you can even google people?"
. . . oh hell no. . .
"did you ever google yourself?"
. . .yeah, blah blah blah, as if you're the first friggin brainchild to come up with that idea. blah blah steering the conversation AWAY from where it could be headed, as best I can. . .
"did you know I'm the only ____name in the world?? Seriously, I've googled myself before (yeah no KIDDING) and there's no other ________ that come up! CHeck it out!"
. . .pregnant pause. . . jill holds her bowels. . .
tap-tap-tappity-tap into the search engine. . .
*click*
. . . NOTHING.
he's right, there are no others like him in the google machine.
my bowels proceed to release themselves and I nearly fall out of the chair. I'm a quivering mound of jelly and I nearly blow chunks.
It's been over 24 hours and I STILL shake when I re-think the whole thing.
Now you tell me, what the FUCK would I have done if it had happened 5 days ago, HUH?!?
Blogging is dangerous.
You totally crack me up! But I crack myself up more, after reading this, I went straight to Google and googled myself to see if my blog came up. Thank god there have been some pretty important and famous Becky/Rebecca Hood's in the world. I'm not even on the first 10 pages. I know I'm not completely safe, but I can at least hope people will give up before they find me.