Eve Fairbanks knew something was up four years ago when her mother drove six hours just to have lunch with her. After a meal of risotto came the moment of truth: “I know about the porn,” Mom told her. It was an honest mistake: Eve’s name popped up on a handful of X-rated sites when her mother had Googled her out of maternal curiosity. But that Eve Fairbanks wasn’t her Eve — it was a “Googlegänger,” a virtual doppelgänger with the same name. “Obviously mom wanted to hear my side of the story,” says Eve. “but she put a lot of trust in Google as a source.”

Just as “Googling” has become standard slang for “searching online,” the term “Googlegänger” has also caught on with a generation of young people defined not so much by their accomplishments but by how Google-able those accomplishments are. “You are who you are because of Google,” says Matthew Slutsky, 26-year-old Washington political blogger who has befriended his own Googlegänger through the social networking site Facebook. For some, their Googlegänger is a rival in a race to the top of the Google hit list.

For others, the Googlegänger can be an object of curiosity, of comparison — an alter ego of sorts. Minnesota IT consultant Robert Fischer who had the misfortune of being 10 when Searching for Bobby Fischer, the 1993 movie about a prepubescent chess prodigy, came out. At the time, it made things awkward at home where his grandfather was training him to be a chess champ himself, he says, “and here was some kid who was younger and better than I’d ever be.” Today he introduces himself as Robert — never Bobby. And for good reason. Even still, it appears people are quite literally searching for Bobby Fischer: the chess champ has thwarted — you might say checked — Robert’s many attempts at upping his Google rank. “I’ve spoken at conferences, I’ve consulted in a bunch of places, and I’m an avid blogger,” the 25-year-old says. “After three years of posting my full name over and over and over again in my blog, I’ve just now gotten onto the first page of results for Google.”

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