I still think it's a bit presumptuous to assume that I have a "strong" online presence, but I can say that I exist online moreso than most students. That being said....

The trick to controlling your Google results is to move the positive stuff forward. Google the phrase "SEO" or "Search Engine Optimization" and you will be well on your way. My buddy Chris Lesinski has a better handle on this (I'll ask him to chime in.)

And unless you are all willy-nilly with your friend request acceptance and your filters, you should be okay. Like a lot of things in the world, it comes down to one simple rule: don't be stupid.

As for me, my reputation online is a lost cause. Any employer can pretty easily find videos of my shotgunning beers. Oh well.

http://studentbranding.com/

This is a blog by one of the foremost personal branding experts in the world. He runs several sites on the topic, but this one is geared towards college students and how to use your online persona to make gains in the real world after school. I've heard him speak several times, his ideas can be over the top at times, but he's lived it and speaks from experience.

If you don't want your future boss seeing it don't put it online. I would suggest purchasing www.yourname.com and www.yourscreenname.com and even if you don't put anything up, results from my domain take up a good portion of my search results, I can effectively control what future bosses see when they search me.

I would say that you just need to have a good net results on google.

When you are going to look for Kelly Sutton on the internet, you can find him shotgunning a beer, but you also find cool projects like onemonthhere.com. Everybody has their stupid things on the internet, future bosses won't make that bigga deal out of it.

Make sure you have bought www.yourname.com, make it a good online cv. And get into SEO also, it will be fun!

As has been mentioned in the prior answers, depending on the situation, the best online presence can often be the complete lack of an online presence.

That being said if you want a solid online presence, I would recommend using sites such as www.emurse.com which is a resume building/posting site (it is an anagram for resume, if you didn't already figure that out). Emurse assists you in developing a professional resume and give you numerous tools to distribute said resume. You can download the resume as a .doc; PDF and a few other files types for your own distribution or you can allow Emurse to "publish" your resume within search results so that potential employers will be better able to fine your resume. You can easily set it so that you receive notice every time a person/computer views your resume. All of the features I mention are available in the free version (the version I personally use), a few more features are included in the paid version.

My next piece of advice is obvious but worth restating nonetheless: don't put ANYTHING online on ANY website that you would not be comfortable with an employer viewing! Many people have the false idea that Facebook is completely private; most are completely wrong and do understand Facebook's privacy settings completely. You are able to limit a number of things within Facebook; many to your advantage. However, all it takes is accepting one "friend" that you don't truly know well to ruin everything. It is not at all uncommon for companies to hire people to friend the company's potential hire on various sites to determine if the potential employee has any "skeletons in his/her closet.

With all caution about doing things being given (and mostly me assuming prior knowledge): I would strongly recommend having a Facebook and Twitter account at the minimum. Both of these "services" allow you to stay informed about many things with minimal effort. The key, as I have already mentioned, is not to put anything on these websites that you would not be comfortable with your supervisor/boss viewing.

Multiple people will recommend purchasing various domain names that relate closely to your name, interests or specialties. I personally feel this is a lost cause. Most of the common domain names are already (and have been for a while) taken. In this day, employers understand that just because there is a website called johnsmith.com doesn't mean that the John Smith said company is interviewing created and/or manages the website.

Hopefully this post has been helpful.

My bottom line is as follows: Be online; it is essential today. Limit the ability of your online presence (no matter how private you think it is) to shed negative light on you. Also, if you on certain sites you receive "friend" requests from people who you do not know: ignore said requests or verify that you do indeed know then through a reliable link before friending them.