It has been claimed online that 93% of people have Googled their own names. Today we’ll take a look at this “fact.”
This is a false assertion based on a non-scientific survey, and conflicts with more traditional polling figures.
There are several ways to approach this claim. One is to state the obvious: that much of the world has no internet access, so it would be impossible for 93% of people to Google their own name.
If we are talking about 93% of internet users, then there certainly must be scientific studies to back this up.
But there aren’t.
2007 Pew Study
In 2007, a study regarding “Egosurfing” – the practice of searching one’s name – found that 47% of Americans have engaged in such a search. According to Pew Internet:
“A new study from the Pew Internet and American Life Project has found that 47% of American adult internet users have undertaken a vanity search in Google or another search engine.”
2011 Study
In 2011, Pew found that the number had increased to 57%:
More than half (57%) of adult internet users say they have used a search engine to look up their name and see what information was available about them online…
2012 Trackur Survey
The 93% figure comes from a survey of Trackur users. Trackur is a social media monitoring service. This was not a scientific poll, and merely states that 93% of their users have Googled their name.
Trackur admits, “Of course, you could argue that any poll conducted by Trackur would likely skew towards an internet user that is more aware of the importance of their online reputation.”
Bottom Line
The 93% figure generated by Trackur is not a scientific number, and is considerably different than those established by formal Pew polling.
Sources
- Do You Use Google For Vanity Searching? You’re Not Alone (Duncan Riley, TechCrunch/Pew: December 16, 2007)
- Reputation Management and Social Media (Mary Madden & Aaron Smith, Pew Internet: May 26, 2010)
- 46% Have Googled Their Name in the Past 24 Hours; Only 6% Never Have (Trackur)
