It has become increasingly popular with the rise of Internet search engines, as well as free blogging and web-hosting services.
The term was coined by Sean Carton in 1995 and first appeared in print as an entry in Gareth Branwyn's March 1995 Jargon Watch column in Wired.
Some egosurf in order to conceal personal images or information from potential employers, clients, identity thieves and the like.
[4] Although personal information available online can be difficult to remove, in 2009 Google introduced a feature allowing users to create a small box listing personal information such as name, occupation and location that appears on the first page of results when their name is searched.
This Google profile can be linked to other social networking sites, such as one's blog, company website or Twitter feed.