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Tuesday, March 03, 2009

Interesting Google Search Terms - February 2009

Here are some of the Google search terms that got people to my blog this past month that were interesting or strange or reveal problems with Google search. And while people got here through other search engine, the search terms of other engines are always as clear as google's.

  • story of famous person who want to know english
An interesting query. They got to the post of famous people born in 1909, one of the more popular posts.

  • why people born
This is like asking the meaning of life. This one got to the same page as the one above. I don't think they found the answer.

  • names of famus people the discoverd bits of the earth
I should have noted where this searcher was from. While some Americans make fun of people whose English isn't quite right, a lot of US born Americans couldn't write that much in any language besides English, even with errors. Not sure what they were looking for, but this was another famous people of 1909 hit.

  • how old would you be if you born in 1908?
This one got to famous people born in 1908. And may actually have gotten the answer there. Here's someone who can spell, write grammatically, can search google, but can't figure out the difference between 2009 and 1908.

  • on planes why do famous people get to be in firstclass easy and normal people have to try hard to get in?
Um, because they have first class tickets? Also got to famous people born in 1909.


  • maimonides and stress management
The reader got to a book review of a biography of Maimonides. This also reflects a problem with google - that gets worse below - of showing words from totally unrelated posts or parts of a blog and linking them together. Here they got to me because I had Maimonides and a link to the blog Stress Management and Other Things. Google takes them to the first scrap of a post. That's why I put up the "Can't Find It?" box in the upper right corner - for people whose answer might be here, but Google dropped them off at the wrong post.

  • drunk i stole a card reader what do i do?
This got directed to the post that explored the rumors that Track Palin had a choice between jail or the army.

  • how to get in a hotel room without getting caught
This got them to probably the most viewed post of the month, Let's Get Real About Mary Beth Kepner. It certainly got the most hits on a single day - the day after the New York Times carried a story that featured her prominently. Yes, there was mention of a hotel room in that, but not about sneaking in. We could put this one with the one about famous people getting into first class.


  • i looking 4 job bakery in bangkok
Another Google result that mixed terms from different posts. This person got to Charlie's Bakery in Anchorage.


  • do foxes go into rabbit holes
I'm sure my blog doesn't answer this question literally, but maybe figuratively. This search got to the post about the blog Tom Anderson read before heading to prison. Preparing to go into the Rabbit Hole, gave some excerpts from an account of life in a minimum security prison.


  • what does it require to live there in alaska
This surfer got to To Live or Die in Wales, Alaska and the Ethics of Outside Writing About Alaska. That's probably a skewed view of life in Alaska. Good, one more who might go to Seattle instead of Anchorage.

  • rid trees of doves
The post with the picture of the crested serpent eagle, where this person landed, also mentioned the spotted dove. I didn't ask Tony if crested serpent eagles would rid your tree of doves. I think they eat snakes, but maybe other birds too.


  • hamatria anger
I love searches like this. I had no idea why they got to my blog, but sure enough, in the post about Ted Stevens and the Seward Sealife Center, I quoted someone else on hamatria anger. So I learned something from my own blog.

  • linksys rules for radicals
This got to the famous people born 1909 post linked above where there is a brief bio of Saul Alinsky who wrote Rules for Radicals. It's interesting how brains work. This isn't the first person to get here this way. We tend to take sounds and match them to the closest thing we have in our brain to that sound. At least that's my experience. So someone hearing "Alinsky" who has never heard that name before, but has heard of linksys, hears linksys rather than Alinsky.


  • linksys router hijacked
I love people who google this. It makes me feel good to know that someone is going to actually get an answer to the problem and that I'm paying forward all the people who have answered my questions about how to use the computer. But this one had a scary twist to it. It came from a computer at the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission. If they get their router hijacked what all else happened that we don't know about.

Of course, this is a good example of taking a scrap of information and jumping to unfounded conclusions. Maybe it was just an employee whose home router was hijacked and he was making good use of downtime at the office.


  • The Death of Tony Ball in Chiang Mai
Google not doing it's job too well. I knew that Tony Ball was alive on Saturday, and even after that because we've exchanged some emails. But what did the searcher get? She got to a review of the movie "Whirlwind." Here's the blurb you'd see on Google:

What Do I know?: What Basic Need Does the Death Penalty Serve for ...

The reason they support the death penalty is what I would call one of the gut .... Sommersturm at CMU Film Space · Birding with Tony Ball · LOL in Thai · Earthal Eclipse? .... [January 13 - We're in Chiang Mai, Thailand until April] ...
www.whatdoino-steve.blogspot.com/2009/03/what-basic-need-does-death-penalty.html - 19 hours ago - Similar pages


There are five different posts merged into there. Google gives you the one with the first word in the search - in this case - death. But I looked at what else that person got.

Look at this:

WORLDTWITCH - Thailand Natural History Resource Guide - Birding ...

Maekok River Lodge - Rare birds of Ban Thaton by Tony Ball ... south Wales, who was murdered in a guesthouse in Chiang Mai in August 2000. Last month, a Scottish backpacker Mark Lemetti, 24, was beaten to death in southern Thailand. ...
www.worldtwitch.com/thailand_tours_travel.htm - Similar pages


You'd certainly think that Tony Ball had been murdered in 2000 in a guest house if you didn't read this carefully. But Tony Ball is in one post and ..."south Wales, who was murdered" is a different post.

So the person who got to my blog, it appears from the sitemeter tracks, never found the pictures of Tony alive and well on Saturday morning.


That's it for this month.

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