If you’ve ever used a service like Free People Search to look up your name, you might have been surprised by the amount of information floating around about you. Your online presence includes things like civil and legal records, your social media profiles, information from the news about you that could show up, and so much more.
Even if there are things about online that aren’t necessarily negative, you may not prefer that you have much of an online presence at all.
You could simply want to make it a bit harder for people to find you online, especially if you’re in the midst of a big life change, like looking for a new job.
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Why Bother?
You might be thinking, “Why should I care about my online presence?” Well, there are a few good reasons:
- Privacy: The less info out there, the more control you have over who knows what about you.
- Job hunting: Potential employers often look you up online. You want to make sure what they see puts your best foot forward.
- Fresh start: Maybe you’re entering a new phase of life and want a clean slate.
- Peace of mind: It just feels good knowing you’re in control of your personal information.
The following are seven things to know and tips that can help you erase your online presence, or at least limit it, and have more control over what’s out there about you.
1. Find Yourself
Before you can know what you should clean up or get rid of, you need to know what’s out there. It’s tough to know where you exist on the internet.
Start with a general brainstorm session of all the accounts you’ve created over the past decade. Think about your social media accounts, online banking, shopping accounts, forums like Reddit, and anything else you can come up with.
Then, you can start searching for yourself.
Along with using a people search tool, you can also use major search engines. Google is the more obvious one, but don’t forget to search for your name on Bing, DuckDuckGo, and Yahoo.
You can use the Wayback Machine to see if there are any archive pages that no longer exist. If you find your information in an archive, you can contact the owner and ask them to remove your information.
2. Start With Social Media
Social media is widely used, but these sites also hold the most personal data about everyone who uses them. What’s good about social media is that it can be the easiest to get rid of.
If you have photos or posts on social media accounts you want to keep, you can screenshot them before your delete your accounts.
Also, remember that deleting and deactivating social media accounts are two different things. When you want to take a break from being online, you might just deactivate your social media profiles. If you want to completely wipe yourself off the internet, you need to delete the accounts.
If you aren’t ready to delete your social media accounts, you can, at a minimum, try to make them all private and update your privacy settings to the highest levels.
3. Delete Online Shopping Accounts
Having online shopping accounts is convenient. You can log in, and all of your personal information is probably saved for you, so you can check out with a single click. Even so, if you truly want to eliminate your online presence, you’ll need to delete these accounts.
Retailers can make it a bit more challenging to delete and deactivate your accounts than social media sites, and you may need to contact customer service directly.
4. Remove Forum Posts and Comments
One of the things that most often tends to get people in trouble online is their comments. These comments might be on other people’s social media profiles, they could be on public pages, or they could be forum posts on sites like Reddit.
There’s not a standard way to have comments and posts removed, so you may end up having to get in touch with the site owner or manager and request they delete your content. This can be time-consuming, and it can also be tough to remember everywhere that you’ve commented and posted.
5. Get Rid of Outdated Search Results
After you delete your social media and other accounts, the information can still show up in search results. Even if you’ve fully removed your presence, someone might be able to search your name and see the same results.
That’s because search engines will keep a cache of a website. That’s what the search engine is usually going to show in results. The cache should clear within a few weeks, but if not, you may need a tool to have the cached website removed.
Google, as an example, has a page with instructions to remove outdated content. You might not always be able to delete cashed web addresses from search results, though.
6. Delete Email Addresses
You might want to delete the old email accounts that are associated with online accounts. Only do this if you’re able to set up an entirely fresh email account. You may not need to delete your email addresses. If you can’t delete the one you primarily use, you might disable addresses you don’t use anymore.
7. Weigh the Pros and Cons of Online Removal Sites
If you’re trying to take your presence off the internet and as you’re removing site data, you’re probably going to come across plenty of sites that say they can do it for you. These services, for a fee, will search online for your information, and they’ll scrub what they can.
This can save you a lot of time because the DIY approach is labor-intensive.
These sites may also have better search functions and be able to uncover the information you can’t.
The downside of these online removal sites is the cost and trust. You also have to provide deletion sites with personal information first. They work by looking for what you provide and requesting it be removed from other sites. If you’re giving your information to a third party to remove it from the internet, you want to be sure they’re not going to turn around and sell or store the information themselves.
Wrapping It Up
Phew! That was a lot, right? Cleaning up your online presence is definitely a big job, but it can be really rewarding. Here are some final thoughts:
- Take it step by step. You don’t have to do everything in one day.
- Be thorough, but also realistic. It’s nearly impossible to erase every trace of yourself online.
- Going forward, be mindful of what you share online. Prevention is easier than cleanup!
Remember, the goal isn’t to disappear completely (unless that’s what you want!). It’s about taking control of your online identity and feeling good about what’s out there about you.
So, are you ready to take charge of your digital footprint? It might take some effort, but future you will thank present you for looking out for your online self. Good luck, and happy cleaning!
