Nothing brings out the worst in folks quite like anonymity. Under the misguided belief that the Internet was created to catalog negative comments and painfully poor grammar, Internet trolls rant and pillage the Web–and leave in their wake you, with a helpless, panicky feeling.

Every public relations person has a different theory on how to handle ridiculous, demeaning and downright false comments; here’s mine:

Don’t delete: folks have the right to disagree with you–even they are snarky and mean-spirited.  As long as the comment isn’t a threat, patently offensive, spam, bigoted, libelous or keeping you awake at night, leave it be. These are comments from trolls, not statements from the Pope.

Count to 4,567: as bad as the troll’s comment is and despite how angry/hurt/sad it makes you, it’s not the end of the world. Take a deep breath, step away from the computer and think before you respond.

Just the facts, ma’am: should you decide to respond to the the troll in a comment of your own, do so with a level head, refuting the troll point-by-point using factual statements with as little emotion as possible (Trolls hate that). Under no circumstances are you to fight with the troll or engage in it in sarcastic comm-versation.

Use your real name: transparency is key when responding to an Internet troll. When you respond, it should be under your real name. In my book, if your comment is anonymous it doesn’t count–and you’ve become a troll, too. Read More…

Oh, boy! Looks like more folks are discovering public relations truths via Google. This recent Flackrabbit search query needs no introduction…

…but it does need an answer. Here, let me: Read More…

Never.

As professional communicators, you understand the public humiliation and/or blacklist that awaits those who make their living at this craft via unethical practices. You are completely aware that The All-Seeing Internet will ferret out even the most casual white lie. Make no mistake, you’ll be found out in a matter of minutes (hours, if you’re lucky) by angry bloggers, curious journalists or savvy Web searchers.

I know you know that, but someone was unsure and Googled this the other day, stumbling onto ye old FlackRabbit:

Read More…

I love that when one searches for things like “tea cup poodle,” my blog is offered up as a search result in Google Images. It makes sense, of course, because Georgia is kind of a big deal.

It’s also funny that my February 2009 joy over finding the perfect shade of natural nail polish at Walgreens is one of FlackRabbit’s top posts of all time. For real, Google, Bing and Yahoo send the nail polish needy here just about everyday.

From the FlackRabbit search term referrer log:

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• Guard your kids by locking Google SafeSearch (tekunik.blogspot.com)
• Google apologises for Obama image (news.bbc.co.uk)

From LinkedIn profile peeping to blog surfing, nothing you do on the Web is a secret. (Nor “semi-private,” as the Mayor of Arlington, TN will tell you.) It’s not that Big Brother is spying on you, it’s that everywhere you go, your Internet browser leaves behind a trail.

A recent example: a White House staffer reads Suburban Turmoil and Lindsay Ferrier has the screen shots to prove it.

Is it cool and fabulous that a person inside the most powerful office in the world reads Lindsay’s blog? Um, totally! Did he for one minute think the author of the blog would ever know, much less write about said visit? Nope.

Know this: nearly all Web authors–including this one–check their Google Analytics and/or StatPress-type visitor logs. We’re curious about the number of folks who find our writing interesting, how often you come back, etc. It’s actually sort of an obsession akin to watching a Chia Pet grow.

We can’t see your name or street address, but we know your city and state. We can’t see the name of your company, but we usually can see the server upon which you surf (state/federal employees!). We can even see what search term you used to find us, what Website referred you, how long you hung around and what links you clicked on.

If knowing content managers are spying on your stats makes you feel a tad icky, I’m sorry I’ve made you feel uncomfortable. That said, you know how I feel about your Web wanderings: a healthy dose of caution is always a good thing.

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Sure, Google is taking over the world, but how they’re doing it is so freakin cool.

Have you seen Social Search? Check out the video below and then tell me you don’t think this is about the neatest/ slightly creepiest/ a tad too personal-ist thing you’ve seen in a while.

I ran a social search for “Nashville” and got a list of all the relevant blog posts, news articles, Tweets, etc. that my social networking connections (that I have given my Google profile access to) are associated with. IT WILL BLOW YOUR MIND.

I love it; I’m using it in Google Labs right now and I’m about to pee my pants — in a this-is-all-too-close-for-comfort kind of way.

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• Google Social Search to go live Monday (news.cnet.com)
• Introducing Google Social Search: I finally found my friend’s New York blog! (googleblog.blogspot.com)
• BREAKING: Google Announces Social Search (mashable.com)

If you have a blog of your own, then you know how fun it is to obsess over scan your Google Analytics account for the search terms by which folks are finding you, what state they live in, how long they stayed on your site, etc. Most of the time, the search terms that lead folks to you make sense; in my case: Margie Newman, Margie Maddux, Nashville PR, Twitter is useless, Internet privacy, Google yourself, Internal communications, etc.

But sometimes, folks find you by typing in weird stuff like:

And:

Or they come to you in their quest for answers like:

And:

And:

But it’s always the most fun when – every now and then – folks stumble upon Flackrabbit in search of things I’m really honored to be associated with like:

Please know that whatever term, quest or curiosity brings you here — I appreciate your readership! Thanks for stopping by!