The internet is an interesting beast. It offers privacy and anonymity, yet at the same time gives us plenty of opportunity to pull those curtains aside and become celebrities in our own right. In the world of community-shaped brands, overnight popularity and popularity as fickle as a mouse click, we are given plenty of opportunities to make a quick buck, win a quick victory, be a featured celebrity or make a quick contribution.

The only thing that seems to be tying all these things together on a consistent basis is speed. Contribution needs to be fast, results have to be instant, and if something doesn’t catch our attention within our rapidly diminishing attention span, the audience moves on to the next best thing. Things with real staying power are growing fewer and fewer, and the last thing that seems to have any kind of tenacity is reputation.

Let’s face it: Employers, clients, friends and colleagues will search for our names online, and an even sightly determined sleuth will be able to uncover a substantial amount of our history. As a result we each have to be very careful about managing our online activity, and in particular our professional reputation; Even the slightest negative comment found in a search result will raise unwanted eyebrows, and raised eyebrows mean lost interviews, bids, and job opportunities.

To that end, I’ve tried to list a few rules and guidelines that I follow. I’m hardly perfect at them, and there are exceptions for each, yet overall they are things that I’ve learned that are absolute must-haves in order to properly manage your reputation as a developer.