What's Your Google Rep? (eWeek Careers) Do you share a name with an axe murderer? Worried about those pictures from Spring break '99? Protecting your digital good name isn't as hard as you think. The practice of manipulating, or "gaming" Google results is getting a bad rap this month as dozens of prominent Web sites have watched their Page Ranks plummet and inbound search traffic and advertising-paid page views slip as a result. But not everyone is trying to maneuver Google for personal gain and future earnings, or at least not directly. Some are just job seekers, hoping to push pictures from Mardi Gras 1999 down from the number one position in a list of results when their names are entered into the search engine. Increasingly, having damaging information or a lack of professionalism online is a deal breaker when applying for a job. Eighty three percent of recruiters—up from 75 percent just two years ago—said they used search engines to learn more about job candidates, according to an Aug. 14 survey released by the recruiting firm ExecuNet. Furthermore, the number who had eliminated a candidate based on what they found online jumped from one quarter (25 percent) to nearly one half (43 percent). more...