Finding out who's Googling you
In 2008, a little over 200 million people had access to the internet in the United States. Worldwide, that number jumped to over 1.6 billion people. An analysis done by Alexa.com, makes it pretty clear that Google is the primary use of anyone looking for anything on the web. So it would stand to reason that if someone was searching for you, the majority of people would do so via Google. Actually, someone “googles” someone else’s name about 50 million times a day.
So is there a way to know who is searching for you? The answer is not hugely cut and dry. There is no direct and legal way for a person to access the server logs at Google and find out who performed a search for a specific keyword phrase. By using Google Analytics, you can enter in your name and see how many people are looking for that phrase (i.e. you), but nothing will identify who they are or where their IP address is.
The question, “Who is searching for me?” doesn’t have to go unanswered. But you may have to look to google indirectly. Third parties like WikiWorldBook, and Ziggs let users create accounts and then wait to see who comes looking. They both have privacy options in place.
You could also use a script such like WebAlizer and/or Awstats. These will both show referrers, which basically mean websites that users have clicked in order to get to you. However, this will only work if they click on the link rather than just searching.
So after all of that, there really isn’t a way to find out who is “Googling” you, but you can still find out who is using the internet to look for you.
