# Your name online

News coverage does not decay. You cannot take it down, but you can push it down, and it takes a year or two.

## The problem — Coverage doesn't decay

Nobody goes back to update the article when the case turns out smaller than the press release said. That number from the indictment is the number the internet remembers, even if you pled to a fraction of it.

You can't take it down. You can push it down.

## What works — Outranking it

That means putting up things you control that rank. Your own site on your own name. A LinkedIn profile you actually fill out. Writing, talks, code, whatever you do.

Search engines favor recent, active, and linked. Old articles sit still while you keep moving.

## Expectations — It's a slow project

Figure a year or two before the first page of results looks different.

Start it anyway, because it compounds and because the alternative is letting a press release from your worst year be the first thing anyone reads.

## The other half — Get ahead of it in person

When you tell someone yourself, the search result confirms what they already know. When they find it first, it feels like they caught you.

That is the same principle at work in [the disclosure conversation at work](/life-after-federal-prison/building-a-career-with-a-record) and in [telling somebody you're seeing](/life-after-federal-prison/coaching-volunteering-and-dating). Order matters more than wording.

### [Work, after the first job](/life-after-federal-prison/building-a-career-with-a-record)

Getting hired is one problem. Building something is a different one, and the conviction stops being the main fact about you sooner than you think.

**Need help with this? Just ask.**

These pages cover the general rules. Your situation has details they don't. Email me a question. **Answers are free** , and "you don't need to pay anyone for this" is my most common answer.

[josh@federalprisondude.com](mailto:josh@federalprisondude.com?subject=Once%20you%27re%20out%20question)

I answer in the order received, usually within a couple of days. I have a day job. If your situation genuinely needs more than an email, I take a limited number of consults, so say so and we'll work it out.