A Monthly Checklist for Monitoring Your Online Reputation
Pick a day each month, block off about half an hour, and run the same checks the same way every time. Keeping them consistent is what lets you see what changed. The list below covers search results, alerts, reviews, people-search sites, images, and account security.
Write down what you find each time. A simple log is the most useful part of the whole routine. It shows when something new showed up, whether a removal stuck, and whether your own pages are rising.
One-time setup (do this before your first month)
- Google Alerts. Go to google.com/alerts and create an alert for each version of your name in quotation marks, such as "Jane Smith" and "Jane A. Smith," plus your business name if you have one. Under Show options you can set how often alerts arrive, which sources to watch, and which region. Google's Alerts help page walks through it.
- Results about you. Set up Google's Results about you and turn on email notifications, so Google tells you when your phone number, home address, or email starts showing up in search results.
- Review notifications. If you run a business, turn on new-review alerts on every platform where you have a listing.
- A log. A spreadsheet with columns for date, search term, rank, URL, what it says, and action taken.
1. Search your name the same way every time
Open a private browser window and make sure you're signed out, so your search history doesn't skew the results. Search your name alone, your name plus your city, and your name plus your job title or business. Record the top ten results for each search.
Compare them with last month. What matters is anything new, anything that moved up, and anything you had removed that has come back.
2. Check images
Look through the Images tab for each name search. Then run your profile photo through Google Lens to see where it appears. That catches photos reused on fake profiles or on sites you didn't know about. If a photo of you is being used without your permission, save the URL and a screenshot, then report it to the site or platform hosting it.
3. Read new reviews and mentions
Go through your Google Alerts emails and any new reviews. Reply to real reviews calmly and briefly, whether they're good or bad. Report only the ones that actually break a platform's rules, such as spam, conflicts of interest, or off-topic rants. A short, factual reply that invites the person to contact you directly usually reads better to future readers than a point-by-point rebuttal.
4. Recheck people-search sites
Data brokers refresh their records, and a listing you removed months ago can come back. Check the Results about you dashboard for new matches, then spot-check the two or three people-search sites that ranked highest for your name.
If you live in California, the state's DROP platform sends a single deletion request to every registered data broker, and since August 1, 2026 brokers have been required to check it at least every 45 days. Everyone else still has to opt out site by site. Our personal info removal page lists what that involves.
5. Check whether your accounts have leaked
A reputation problem often starts with someone else getting into your accounts. Enter your email addresses at Have I Been Pwned to see if they've turned up in known data breaches, and change the password on any account that has. Once a quarter, run Google's Security Checkup to review signed-in devices and apps that have access.
6. Review your own public profiles
Your own accounts are the easiest part to control. Spend five minutes on each:
- Is your job title, city, and photo current on LinkedIn and any professional directories?
- Were you tagged in anything this month that you'd rather not be tagged in?
- Do any old public posts still show up for your name that you would not post today?
- Is every profile using the same form of your name, so search engines connect them?
7. Ask AI assistants what they say about you
More people now look someone up by asking an AI chat assistant instead of running a search. Once a month, ask two or three of the popular assistants a plain question like "Who is [your name] from [your city]?" and record the answers in your log along with the search results.
Watch for mixed-up identities, old details stated as current, and claims you can't trace to any source. These answers are drawn from pages on the web, so fixing or removing the pages they draw on is usually the most reliable way to change them over time. Our page on AI answers explains what you can and can't do there.
8. Update the log and pick one action
End by sorting anything new into one of four groups:
If a page was taken down or edited but Google still shows the old version, submit it to Google's Refresh Outdated Content tool. Then pick one thing to do before next month. Monitoring only helps if something gets done. If you're not sure what Google will remove, read what Google removes for free first.
- Watch: neutral or minor, so just check it again next month.
- Respond: a review or comment that deserves a calm public reply.
- Request removal: it breaks a platform policy, or it's personal information Google or the site will remove.
- Escalate: it's false, it's spreading, or it's affecting your work or safety.
When outside help makes sense
For most people, this routine is enough. Consider help when your log shows the same problem coming back no matter what you do, when new negative content keeps showing up faster than you can deal with it, or when you'd simply rather hand off the monthly check. If you do hire someone, ask them to show you what they check each month. Monitoring you can't see is hard to trust.
Want this handled for you? See our online reputation repair service.
