Internet Myth: Watch What You Post Because Search Will Reveal Everything Forever

The logic here is flawed.

Google can only display a maximum of 1,000 search results for any string, thanks to architectural limitations.

While you can only see 1,000 possible (or in your case 550+) at any one time, you could always change the search string. If I search for "Tom Foremski AND Porn", I will find a different set of results than if I search for "Tom Foremski AND Spam".

If people want to find things, they will. And Google does have the data.

Louis, I take your point but I fail to see how searching for "Joe Schmo and Porn" or some such permutation will reveal anything at all about a person. It's like searching for "Joe Schmo and wife beating."Things aren't indexed in such a specific way. You would have to be far more specific to find something potentially bad about a person, which would mean you knew there was something there. The fact remains that a general search will only turn up a small section of a person's online tracks.

I disagree "If people want to find things, they will." Google might have the data but that doesn't mean you'll find the right combination of search terms to find it. You'll get tired of searching. I'm sure you've had the experience of trying to find something on Google that you know is there but even knowing it's there it is often difficult to find again.

I think everyone has the right to escape their past and do better today. By doing better today in large amounts gives you a chance to potentially distance yourself from bad decisions in the past.

This is dangerous advice.

Just because a trivial search doesn't find everything, it doesn't mean that it has gone away and is not out there to be found.

Dilution is a factor, but so is the human factor that saves things of interest. Once they are digital they can and will persist. When interest is aroused things can emerge from the depths.

The only good advice is:

"What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, what happens on the net stays on the net."

Only post what you are happy to have in the public domain in the cold gray light of dawn or the glare of noon.

Longstone: What is dangerous with my advice, which is: be careful what you post and if you have anything bad dilute it with good because it makes it less likely to be found.

Tom,

What is dangerous is that it gives people a false sense of security, like not wearing a seat belt because you are a good driver and accidents happen to other people.

Your advice essentially says it doesn't matter if something gets out there because the chances of somebody finding it and that it can adversely affect you diminish rapidly.

That depends on all sorts of unknown factors outside of anyone's control.

Once information is on the net, it doesn't go away. Somewhere, somebody has a copy which can always be posted again if there is a reason to do so.

The only safe thing is to do your utmost to make sure the minimum of potentially embarrassing things get out there in the first place. That takes discipline, not carelessness. And the most seemingly harmless or private things can turn nasty on you.

Ask Elliott Spitzer. Ask Paris Hilton.

Just because a thousand other people don't get caught doesn't mean that the consequences for an unlucky individual cannot be life changing.

Your argument is about statistics and populations not about the potential effects upon an individual person that happens to be "unlucky".

What about the train engineer who thought: "Why not send text messages while driving a train, it never did any harm before?"

Get the point?

Not everyone is as smart as you are.

Dear Anon: My advice is to be careful what you post.
But if you have something on the Internet that you think is bad then become active with lots of good content because the bad will get diluted into the long tail of you...
I don't know what is "dangerous" about this advice.
Internet users are pretty smart, most of the time. If they slip up then there are ways to deal with it, it's not the end of the world.

Dear Tom :
Most of the Internet users are *not* smart. Everyone uses the Internet today and not everyone is smart, not even a majority (or else I would have been aware of it, I work as a searcher). And I can see the stupidity of questions asked in forums and the details on their life lots of young people publish on the Myspace or else ...

Anon: People are getting smarter all the time. Young people are very careful about how they fit in, often they use a different identity. We all have a private and public life and our public life is the Internet and that becomes a carefully managed life (thank god for "untag" on Facebook, for example..And we will all become ever more adept about grooming our public persona.