Effort: ModerateCost: Free

The Internet is an amazing venue for sharing your life with family and friends, but if you don't pay attention to what you're sharing, it can turn into a privacy nightmare. You can do a lot to protect yourself. If you're on Facebook, for example, get to know the privacy settings. You can determine what you broadcast to the world; and when used wisely, the settings provide serious control over what details the site exposes. One great setting to tweak is the Search setting, which lets you restrict how much information people can see about you before you add them as friends.

If you've tried your hand at a lot of social networks over the years, it's a good idea to go back and delete old, neglected accounts that still show up in your Google results but don't satisfactorily portray the professional demeanor you've worked so hard to cultivate.

Finally, set up a simple nameplate site to take an active role in determining what people see when they dig for dirt on you. One worthy option is a , which can give you a leg up in shaping how others perceive you on the Web (though in our tests, it didn't rank as highly in our search results as we had hoped).