Ego-Searching: Typing your name in on Google to see what kind of stuff comes up, lets be honest everyone does it; some companies have made even made a business out of capitalizing on the millions of searches like this every day.  But with the right resources, you can go beyond just Google, and really dig deep into your own presence on the web!

5. Monitor your name with Google Alerts:
Have Google notify you via email every time they find a new page with your name on it.  This way when that person you met drops your name on their livejournal you are actually the first to hear about it, dont worry if its bad, no one reads people’’s livejournals anyways.

4. See How Many Times Your Name is Searched on Google:
Are you one of those people that possesses the double-edged sword of a Unique Name?  See how many people search for you on Google with the Google Adwords Keyword Tool. Type in your name, fill in the CAPTCHA, and make sure you select “Exact” in the “Match Type” Dropdown.

(If you’re not famous like me, you may get “insufficient data”, but anyone with any sort of web reputation gets a significant amount of searches. “Michael Arrington”, for example, gets 2,900 searches a month.)

3. Verify your Professional Info with ZoomInfo:
ZoomInfo scrapes all sorts of sites that Google may not hit, and aggregates data about your career history.  Search for your name here and make sure their web-crawlers didn’t pick up on the fact that you were a night manager at the Lusty Lady back in 1985.

2. Snoop on Hipsters with Twitter Search:
Twitter is a “micro-blogging” site that allows its hipster users to post 140 character updates, many of which can be shared publicly.  Although it is still used by only a small portion of the internet world, Twitter’s audience and media attention is growing quickly.  Snoop on people’s posts with the Twitter search engine:

1. Scan the Social Web with Friendfeed Search:
Another new social media overload service out there is friendfeed, which “aims to be a one stop shop for all your social networking updates and news items.”  Basically, it aggregates everything its members do on sites like facebook, twitter, youtube, etc…

WIKIPEDIA BONUS:
Want to see how many people look at a wikipedia page?  Use this Wikipedia Article Traffic Statistics tool to see how many people check out any page on Wikipedia. The numbers aren’t exactly encouraging, just as many people look at the XENA: Warrior Princess page, as the World War II page.