Beefing Up Your Google+ Profile's Privacy

Here are some tips on beefing up your Google+ profile's privacy.

The coolest thing about Google+ is that it offers much more in terms of privacy than Facebook does. In fact, the "Circles" which the entire service revolves around exist because Google knows that you may not want to share everything you post with all 1,000 of your friends. Privacy is essentially the number one priority of G+.

That doesn't mean much if you don't know how to utilize it, so let's run through a few key items.

Creating your circles

This is the key to the social network that will destroy FB. Or at least, the social network that is really making FB sweat.

From your Google+ home screen, you will see four tabs at the top (to the left of the "Find People" search bar). These are Stream, Photos, Profile, and Circles. Click on the fourth one, "Circles."

This will take you to a list of all of your friends with several pre-defined circles at the bottom. You can keep the default circles or create new ones that better reflect your preferences.

Just go through your friends and drag them into different circles, based on how much you think you will be sharing with them. Close friends and family will likely be receiving more regular and more personal updates than your coworkers. You can also have one person in multiple circles. Be as meticulous as you want, because having good, accurate circles is important for beefing up your profile in the next step.

Editing your profile

Now, from the four tabs next to the search bar, click the third one, "Profile."

This is your hub. This is what everyone else sees when they click on your name. From your profile, they can see all of the information you have chosen to let them see, all of your G+ posts which you have allowed them to see, any photos you have made visible to them, among a few other things.

On this screen, there is a blue button that says "Edit Profile." Click that and you will be able to select every individual section of your profile and edit who can see that section. By everything, I mean everything. Well, except for your gender. And your name. And your profile picture. So, yeah, everything but those things.

Go ahead and click around your profile and select which circles can see them. For example, everyone in my "Family" circle can see my phone number and home address. However, this information is very personal, so other circles cannot see this info. This same level of micromanaging can be done with all other fields such as "Bragging rights" and "Employment."

You may choose that only your "Family" and "Church Family" can see all of your information. Everyone else may only be able to see your name and gender. Or, you may be comfortable with the whole world seeing your job title and work history. You may want everyone in all of your circles to see who your friends are, but you don't want a complete stranger to see. You get the point. It's all up to you.

While you are still in "edit" mode on your profile, go ahead and click around to the different pages of your profile, such as "photos". You can also control whether these pages even show up when other people view your profile.

When you are done with all of this, click "Done Editing" to submit your changes. Then click "View profile as..." This allows you to view your profile as it would look to someone who is outside of your circles. Make sure it reflects the settings you just submitted.

Google+ settings

One of the things I hate about Facebook is that when someone tags me in a photo, it links the photo to my profile and places the photos in my albums. There may be a way to change it, but that means I have to do the other thing I hate about Facebook - crawling through the dark labyrinth of their settings. So I haven't done it.

Anywho, click on the image of the gear in the upper right-hand corner of the screen and then "Google+ settings" toward the bottom, you can choose which circles are allowed to link to your profile if they tag you in a photo. Awesome!

Well, there you have it. You have now tweaked your profile and Google+ is now ready and able to completely replace FB as soon as you convince your friends to make the switch. What are you waiting for?