subject: Keep Your Pen Name Secret in Every Way [print this page] Keep Your Pen Name Secret in Every Way Keep Your Pen Name Secret in Every Way
I love using the online article directories. They give my thoughts and musings much wider reach, and bring additional readers to my blog. As I was going through today and updating my pen names and author profiles, it occurred to me that there is a path for someone who is inquisitive to find out who the real person behind the pen name is. In most situations that would be okay, but for the pen names that deal with personal issues, are sensitive work related stories, or anything else that might get me in trouble, I want to make sure that no one can find out who the man behind the curtain is.
Imagine that you have a successful blog, which you feed with readership through online article directories, you have a wonderful author profile, and you start to become popular. Unfortunately, this popularity does not automatically translate into protection from the consequences of personal information and stories you might share. It would be a shame to have a successful blog but get fired, divorced, disowned, and even have your dog leave you.
So, how do you make sure that you hide your full identity? Well, you certainly have to do all the basics. This means in your blog your login with your pen name, as opposed to your real name, or at least make sure your posting is done with your pen name. You have to also obviously make sure your footer has your pen name, and a link back to your pen name blog. Furthermore, if you expose your e-mail address anywhere, make sure that your e-mail address is consistent with your pen name and pen blog domain name.
Even though it's tempting to create links between all your blogs in order to promote SEO, and show off your wide range of interests, you would probably be better off not linking them together. Someone who has a suspicion, or is curious about you, would follow them and put all the pieces together.
Okay, it looks like all our tracks are covered, so where's the problem?
There's still a big gaping security hole called the whois record. The domain name is registered to you, and in most cases the default information is entered into the whois fields. You can check what the whois information of your domain is by going to Google typing in "whois check", going to the one of the websites that offer the whois look up, and entering your domain name. If you don't see any of your information there, that's good. It means you chose private registration when you registered your domain name. Private registration is a good idea because it hides your information from people that regularly search the whois records, but the expense adds up if you register a lot of domains in pursuit of your niche marketing or search engine optimization strategy.
You may want to consider forgoing private registration, and instead planning out what information you are going to put into the whois records in order to minimize your exposure on the Internet. For the majority of your domain name registrations, you can create an alias and an e-mail address that is only used for domain registrations. No surpise, it's going to get a lot of spam. Check it once a week or so, but since you know that e-mail address is only used for domain registrations, you won't have to check it very often.
For your pen name domains, you have a choice. You can use the regular domain name alias that you're using for all your other domains, or you can use an e-mail address that is similar to your pen name and pen name domain. If you use a reachable e-mail address it will further the illusion that the pen name you're using is actually a real person.
To change the whois records at domainsinseconds, do the following (it is similar at all domain registration sites):
Go to the domain manager.
Click the checkbox for the domain you want to change.
Click on the contact box on the toolbar above the list of domains.
The "update contact information" box will pop up.
Check the box that says "copy to all contact types" (there are four, the registrant, administrator, technical, and billing).
Change the name and email address to the pen name and email address for the pen name.
Now that you have verified the domain name registration information is consistent with your pen name, you can be confident that you have done everything reasonable to keep the identities of your pen names separate.
