As a psychologist I make sure to guard the privacy of my clients carefully. So when I saw clients reviewing me online, and without masking their identity, I had two thoughts. First, I think it’s wonderful that public acceptance of mental health care has increased so much that people are willing to share openly and help others who are trying to find a great therapist for themself. Second, it motivated me to give a “how to” guide (with useful pictures and all!) for those who would want to share any therapy experience, but to be able to do so guarding thier identity.
Let me first be really clear here: If you are or were a client of mine, this is not a request for an online review. This is only meant to offer you a way for you to protect your privacy if you want to post a review online to voluntarily spread the word about ANY business or service where you want to help others in their decision making by sharing your experience. If you are someone other than a client, I am absolutely asking for your help to get the word out about any therapy services or therapists you think the public should know about. It’s my deep desire for people to have access to reviews and information that can get them the help they are looking for. It can be such an overwhelming experience for anyone, but particularly if a person doesn’t have anyone they know who could give a recommendation.
Probably the two most powerful places for reviews or recommendations for anything are Google and Yelp, but you’ll see right away that you need an account to do so. Simple enough, and most are fine using their real identity to give a restaurant or plumber a review, but there is a way to remain annonamous for reviews that are more sensitive where you might not want the public connecting your identity with a review. So below you will find a series of “how to” guidelines with a few approaches that will help maintaining privacy for online posting of reviews.
Before you jump in, it may also be useful to know that any one computer IP address can have up to 5 Google accounts connected to it, so you can set up a series of different identities to log in to online for different purposes. You could have one for work, one for personal use, one for online reviews etc. So feel free to create multiple accounts as they are free, as using separating identities can prove to be very useful since Google uses the profile/identity you’re logged in with to build a profile for you when using that identity. That helps you get more useful suggestions from Google as it builds separate profiles related to your online activity for each separate online identity (no sense getting recommendations for dog food when you’re online working on a year end corporate report).
Your guide to annonymous Google and Yelp accounts:
If you already have a Google account, and you would like to modify it for privacy, follow these steps.
Open any internet browser and go to the google.com. If you are not already signed in, click on the top right corner to “sign in” to your existing account.
When you are signed in to your existing account, you will see an icon now at the top right of the screen that represents the account you are using. Click on that image for a drop down menu and then select the option to “manage your Google account,” or select the account you want to sign in and use for repurposing as an anonymous account and then select the “manage your Google account” when you are in the correct account.
Now you are on your Google account page, and on the left you can select “personal info”. You can change any of the existing information to whatever you like. Use only a first name, a fictitious name, different birthdate, and any “profile picture” you might want to represent your account. You need not change any other information, such as your email or phone number connected to the account. All that is shielded from the public.
Open any internet browser and go to the google.com, then click on the “sign in” button on the top right.
This will take you to a sign in page that also has a “create account” as an option to select at the bottom. When you select it you will see a drop down menu with options to select. Choose “for my personal use.”
From there you will be walked through a series of pages entering personal information to create an account. You can use only a first name or a fictional name, a real or fictional birthdate etc. When done you will have a new Google account with whatever identity and identifying informamation you choose.
Open any internet browser and go to the google.com, then click on the “sign in” button on the top right.
This will take you to a sign in page that also has a “create account” as an option to select at the bottom. When you select it you will see a drop down menu with options to select. Choose “for my personal use.”
From there you will be walked through a series of pages entering personal information to create an account. You can use only a first name or a fictional name, a real or fictional birthdate etc. On one of the screens you are asked “how you’ll sign in”. Select “use your existing email” at the bottom of the screen and proceed with the additional prompts to input an existing non-google email address and then other details.
When done you will have a new Google account with whatever identity and identifying information you choose and an already existing non-google email account..
Type “googlemaps.com” into any internet browser to get to the page below. Select the “sign in” button on the top right and select the account you want to use for a review. If you’re already signed in to a Google account it will show with the picture/icon in the top right instead of showing “sign in.”
If you want to change to a different account for reviews than the one it shows you signed in as, click on the account icon in the top right and it will show a list of available accounts to change to for your review.
Type in the name of the business you want to review
Scroll down on the left until you see the “leave review” button and you’re on your way.
Open a website browser and go to yelp.com, then select the “sign up button.”
Select the “continue with Google” option for signing up to create a Yelp account.
Type in the google account address connected to the annonymous user identification you want to use, and follow the prompts to complete the account.
Open yelp.com in a web browser and type in the business you wish to review, then scroll on the left on the screen until you can find that business and select it.
Scroll down page on the business you selected until you see the “write a review” button and select it, then follow the prompts.
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