Post #64

Googley woogley

27th November 2003, the wee hours | Comments (16)

A cat wearing a hat made out of half a lime

My parents are good people. They’ve always looked after my brother and I, made sure we had the best of everything (or the worst, depending on which character trait they were building in us that week), and they’ve always backed us in all that we did.

I used to think of them as well-rounded people, more interested in our happiness than how we’re fairing in the rat race. But recently I’ve noticed a mercenary glint in my mother’s eye.

It seems that whatever news I bring her — the completion of a challenging script; the news that my traffic here has increased by 3,000%; my joining WaSP; whatever — the first words out of her mouth are, Yes, but will it earn you any money?

Fair enough, you might think, I live in her house, I eat her food, the woman’s probably desperate for me to accumulate the funds necessary for a swift exit to a place of my own. But still, every time… It kind of gets you down.

It was, therefore, with a slightly Capitalist eye that I perused my server stats this week. Was there a trend to exploit? Was there a pattern to be found? Were 40,000 people a month coming to my site looking for fashionable headware for their cats? If so I could fill that gap, and tell my mother, Yes, woman, I will earn some money from it! I will be the Cat Hat King of Western Europe!

So, what did I find? What am I doing well at, vis à vie Google? Well, here’s a list of search terms people have used to find me, and with them my Google site rankings (.com/.co.uk) as of today:

Surprisingly practical

Plain daft

So, I’m wondering, what’s your best, but strangest Google ranking for?

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Comments (16)

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  1. Jeremy C. Wright:

    Oh goodness, I've really really lost track. I wish I was still running AW-Stats so I could dig a little deeper.

    Certainly some I've blogged on like Honda's Cog commercial. Others I haven't (like pink girls).

    I'm always baffled by some of the high rankings I get on certain terms. I've become aware that the titles I put in for articles often put me in the top 10 for what I'm writing about.

    One of these days I'll write a week full of "Grow Ur Peni5 SIZ!" entries ;-)

    Posted 13 hours, 51 minutes after the fact
  2. Kevin McDonagh:

    I sympasise with you. I too live at home and do the web thang which I'm sure one day will eveolve into a lucrative career. It will all fall together one day especially with a genius web site like this behind you, I think your on the right path trying to exploit the popularity of your website.
    Good luck and...
    I feel your pain man, I feel your pain.

    Posted 14 hours, 41 minutes after the fact
  3. Michael Heilemann:

    Coolest... Cat... Ever!

    Posted 21 hours, 14 minutes after the fact
    Inspired: ↓ Dunstan, ↓ MaThIbUs
  4. Tara:

    Well Dunstan, my boy, you have inspired me to do my own post about searches in my logs. It's at http://www.taracleveland.com/personal/archives/00000099.html
    in case anyone is curious. I love finding the strange searches people do. It's truly amazing.

    Posted 21 hours, 56 minutes after the fact
  5. Dunstan:

    You're right Michael, that cat does rock! :op

    I got it from this site (pretty funny):
    http://www.pineapple-girl.com/melee/current.php

    Who in turn got it from this site (very odd):
    http://www.metababy.com/

    Posted 1 day, 14 hours after the fact
    Inspired by: ↑ Michael Heilemann
    Inspired: ↓ MaThIbUs
  6. Ken Walker:

    "Stickfighting."

    Every month for the past quarter, I've received over 100 hits each month (far and away the majority) from Google because people searched for "stickfighting."

    Apparently it's a form of street fighting with weapons, but I was writing about a funny little flash cartoon with fighting stick figures.

    Posted 4 days, 4 hours after the fact
  7. Ethan:

    "fling poo"

    No, I don't know why this drives ~100 clickthroughs to my site every month.

    And if I did, I wouldn't tell you. So there.

    Posted 4 days, 13 hours after the fact
  8. Web:

    social shaping of microwave oven

    Posted 6 days, 21 hours after the fact
  9. Fargoboy:

    People search for the oddest things: From the FargoBoy.com November 2003 logs...

    18 hits: flatulance

    5 hits: whale flatulance (ranked 3rd in Google)

    6 hits: fcc god box

    4 hits: oranges and graphic design

    3 hits: how to eat in a space shuttle (ranked #1 in Google -- really not sure where that one came from )

    3 hits: north dakota nuclear missiles

    Posted 1 week after the fact
  10. Ben Saunders:

    "burnt tongue"
    "honesty in public speaking"
    "liverpool street station fetish"

    Hmmm....

    Posted 1 week after the fact
  11. Aaron:

    "amatuer pics"
    "monkstyle bags"
    "sexy home photos"

    Posted 1 week after the fact
  12. Dunstan:

    I've just realised: I'm now going to be ranked for these rediculous phrases in Google :op

    My favourite so far is from Tara [1]:

    "tara shut up!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
    !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

    There's nothing like being insulted via your referers.

    http://www.taracleveland.com/personal/archives/00000099.html

    Posted 1 week after the fact
  13. Sian:

    My biggest search term is picolax, followed by 'antsy pantsy' and 'hand twitch'.

    Picolax I can understand as I made a comment on it about a year ago, but I've no idea about the other two.

    Posted 1 week, 1 day after the fact
  14. Gavin:

    heh - blogs certainly do attract some odd searches.

    My current favourite is 'ebay fraud tutorial' - yes I'm sure people write tutorials on that kind of thing, or do they :

    Also enjoying my high ranking for "Pinapple Pizza" (I'm not the only one who can't spell it).

    Posted 1 week, 3 days after the fact
  15. Adam:

    I started a "You Rang" column like this a few months ago, and this reminds me that I haven't updated it in the last few weeks. My all-time favorite is still "bag of milk canada" considering the fact that I have never written on anything remotely similar to that on my blog. ;-)

    Posted 1 month after the fact
  16. MaThIbUs:

    I found a larger version of this awesome cat image: http://www.guido.be/tooldata/rebexphotogallery/funnypictures/cat41.jpg

    Posted 10 months, 2 weeks after the fact
    Inspired by: ↑ Michael Heilemann, ↑ Dunstan

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