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1. Delete or deactivate your shopping, social media and web service accounts

Think about which networks you have social media profiles on. Aside from the big ones (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn), do you still have old accounts on sites like Tumblr? MySpace? What about your Reddit account? Which shopping sites have you registered on? Common ones might include information stored on Amazon, Gap.com, Macys.com and others.

To get rid of these accounts, go to your account settings and look for an option to either deactivate, remove or close your account. Depending on the account, you may find it under Privacy or Security, or something similar.

If you're having trouble with a particular online account, try searching online for "How to delete," followed by the name of the account you wish to delete. You should be able to find some instructions on how to delete that particular account. (Here's how to permanently delete your Facebook account without losing your photos.)

If for some reason there are any undeletable accounts, change the info in the account to something other than your actual info. Something fake or completely random.

2. Remove yourself from data collection sites
There are companies out there that collect your information. They're called data brokers, and they have names like Spokeo, Whitepages.com and PeopleFinder, as well as plenty of others. They collect data from everything you do online and then sell that data to interested parties, mostly in order to more specifically advertise to you and sell you stuff.

Now you could search for yourself on these sites and then deal with each site individually to get your name removed. Problem is, the procedure for opting out from each site is different and sometimes involves sending faxes and filling out actual physical paperwork. Physical. Paperwork. What year is this, again?

Anyway, an easier way to do it is to use a service like DeleteMe. For $129 per year, the service will jump through all those monotonous hoops for you. It'll even check back every few months to make sure your name hasn't been re-added to these sites.

Be warned: If you remove yourself from these data broker sites, you'll also mostly remove yourself from Google search results, therefore making it much harder for people to find you. DeleteMe also gives you a set of DIY guides on how to remove yourself from each individual data broker if you'd like to do the process yourself.

3. Remove your info directly from websites
First, check with your phone company or cell provider to make sure you aren't listed online and have them remove your name if you are.

If you want to remove an old forum post or an old embarrassing blog you wrote back in the day, you'll have to contact the webmaster of those sites individually. You can either look at the About us or Contacts section of the site to find the right person to contact or go to whois.com and search for the domain name you wish to contact. There you should find information on who exactly to reach out to.

Unfortunately, private website operators are under no obligation to remove your posts. So, when contacting these sites be polite and clearly state why you want the post removed. Hopefully they'll actually follow through and remove it.

If they don't, tip No. 4 is a less effective, but viable option.

4. Remove personal info from websites
If someone's posted sensitive information of yours such as a Social Security number or a bank account number and the webmaster of the site where it was posted won't remove it, you can send a legal removal request to Google to have it removed.

The removal process could take some time, and there's no guarantee it'll be successful, but it's also your best recourse if you find yourself in this vulnerable situation.

5. Remove outdated search results
Let's say there's a webpage with information about you on it you'd like to get rid of -- like your former employer's staff page, months after you've changed jobs. You reach out to get them to update the page. They do, but when you Google your name, the page still shows up in your search results -- even though your name isn't anywhere to be found when you click the link. This means the old version of the page is cached on Google's servers.