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Bite Your Tongue If you're afraid of what people will find if they do an online search of your name or company, follow this tips to clean up your image.

By Linda Formichelli

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

If a potential client were to plug my name into a search engineto get the scoop on the real me, he or she would find:

questions and advice I posted to freelance writers'discussion boards;

articles I've written for online magazines, plus my ownWeb site; and

a really, really (and I mean really) smutty joke called"Blowing Chunks" that I posted to a moderated humore-mail list in 1995.

The good news is, the Internet lets you keep in contact withyour customers and potential customers quickly, easily and cheaply.The bad news, according to John R. Levine, co-author of The Internet for Dummies (IDG BooksWorldwide), is that everything you've ever posted, sent orcreated online is probably still out there somewhere, waiting forthe chance to blindside you and your business.

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