Yet there it was — in all its half-naked, suggestive glory — and Google’s search engine found it because she listed the name of her business on her profile.

Having an online presence of some sort is an ever more common occurrence for individuals. The growing popularity of blogging and sites like MySpace, LiveJournal, Blogger and others have made it easy for people to build their own Web and blog sites. Blogs are, in many ways, revolutionizing how the Web is used as a communication tool in much the same way that email revolutionized how the Internet was used as a communication tool.

But the prevalence of these sites is raising new questions about personal privacy versus professional decorum. Employees of companies large and small have found themselves facing discipline or even losing their jobs because of comments they wrote about their place of work in their personal blogs. Some of these situations have led to wrongful termination lawsuits, and so far, according to an article posted on www.law.com by Pamela A. MacLean of The National Law Journal, these lawsuits are coming down on the side of the employers.

But, firings and lawsuits aside, there is the greater, albeit less dramatic, risk of your employer and/or clients — and potential clients — finding out more about you than you would like them to, and seeing you in a less-than professional light.

Luckily it’s not that difficult to take a few common sense precautions to allow you to maintain your professional demeanor with your clients, co-workers and superiors, and also be able to enjoy a mostly unfettered personal blogging life.

Utilize privacy settings: All the major blog and social networking sites allow users to control who sees profiles and blog entries. Some even allow users to control this access based on individual entries. It’s easy to do, and prevents, for example, reporters from finding your sexually suggestive private profile while searching for your business online.

Change your name: Using a nickname or a variation of your real name can also help keep your personal blogs personal. It’s easy enough to invite those you know and wish to share your thoughts with to access your entries.

Respect other people’s privacy: Just because you have decided you want to post your full name, address and phone number on your blog doesn’t mean that your next door neighbor would enjoy the same full disclosure.

Think before you type: If the aforementioned business owner had simply left the name of her company off her profile, I never would have stumbled upon it. I am sure that she is proud of the fact that she owns her own business, and rightfully so. But given the nature of the profile, it might have been better to more clearly separate it from her professional life.

This is, granted, a fairly extreme example. But other unprofessional stumbling blocks, such as kvetching about your employer, or a client, by name, can put you into serious hot water. Free speech is all well and good, but if you violate non-disclosure agreements, libel someone or even come off as a perpetually disgruntled employee, at best you will tarnish your professional reputation and at worst may find yourself with a lot more time to update your blog in between collecting unemployment checks.

Everyone deserves a private life and has the right to express themselves as they see fit. But just because you know that you can write dirty limericks on MySpace as a hobby and still conduct yourself professionally and knowledgeably at your place of work, doesn’t mean that your clients will agree.