You find yourself or your company while making an Internet search

In a recent conversation I realised that the average Internet user does not know what SEO means.

SEO, Search Engine Optimisation is the technique used by website owners and webmasters to have a higher probability in appearing at the top, or near the top, of a list generated by a search engine such as Google.

To post a web page so that it appears in a search engine result is surprisingly easy if you know what you are doing and have access to your webserver and Google tools. The page needs to be structured in a specific manner and needs to be submitted to Google for Indexing. A page will be indexed by "natural selection" in a specific time depending on your websites popularity, however you can ask Google to index the pageif you have made changes to it.

When a request for indexing has been made the page will appear in search within 24 hours. It will appear at the top or near the top depending on the content and/or the uniqueness of the content.

To the uninformed when they find a reference to their name, or one the same as theirs but actually someone else, the first assumption is that the person making the post is "out to get them".

In a Social Media, celebrity, pop-culture world this is probably a correct assumption.

Other Search Engines

If your name/company appears in another search other than Google then there is not a lot I can do about it.

All I can do is to remove the content from my website/server and make a request to remove the page(s) from the Google Index. I cannot be responsible for what all search engines find on the Internet and as such if you have a problem with what they are returning in their search results you will have to take it up with them directly.

When I see this happening all I can do is submit a page(s) with different content and then wait for the relevant search engines to re-index the content. This further illustrates the perils of Local SEO.