Google Search Hits and Misses July and August 2009

I started doing these search posts some time ago because I occasionally people used interesting search terms. Then I started paying attention to how well people were directed by Google. So last time round I created the little target images and after all that work I figure I'll keep using them.

From my small sample, it seems that the worst 'hits' are those where google finds all the right words, but they are in different posts, so in fact the searcher really doesn't get to something she was looking for. When you are searching you can tell this if the terms you are looking for are separated by . . . It seems to mean they're on the same blog, but in different posts. There are some examples below. Usually people want the words together. But if Google is going to keep doing this, the least they could do is retrieve all the posts they found words from.

It is nice to know that some people find exactly what they were looking for - some information that I've gathered together, particularly if no one else has it. What's really, really frustrating is when I have exactly what they are looking for, but Google sends them to something else. So here's a sampling of the last two months.

Bulls-eye

Thai word for elephant - Bingo. No, that's not the Thai word for elephant, but it's in the post this person got to about the Thai elephant conservation center. Both in English letters and Thai.


can you leave the senate to become a governor - This went to a post about Senator Murkowski running for the Governorship of Alaska.

what are mimes saying - Since they generally aren't saying anything (audible) this is an interesting question from someone from New Zealand. And, remarkably, he got to a post about mime Bill Bowers who did a performance piece where he talked about being a mime. So this looks like a pretty good fit.


lol in thai - another one right in the center of the target. It got to my post entitled, "lol in Thai." I'm sure there are a few people wondering what lol means in English. (Laughing Out Loud.) The Thai version is much better.

puffins murres in sealife center alaska - This one got to a post with pictures from the sealife center which has a picture of a puffin, of a murre, and even one with both a puffin and a murre.

how much does a director at conocophilips get paid - This query came from a Board of Trade and Industry server in London and got to a chart of top Conoco Philips salaries.

these were one of the most common sights in thailand buffalo replace by tracter - This person probably got exactly what he was looking for. A post about how Thai water buffalo had been replaced by tractors, with pictures of water buffaloes 40 years ago.

Close

meteor shower tonight what time singapore - Well, I had a post on meteor shower tonight and I had other posts that mentioned Singapore. But nothing that combined them. Also had people looking for the same thing in Malaysia.

obama amputates the invisible hand - hmmmm. My post didn't blame Obama, it was just Who cut off that invisible hand? I think my post didn't say what they wanted to hear. Good.

who left u.s. senate to become governor? I had the NPR’s political junkie show on Talk of the Nation in the background and they have a trivia question each week. That week’s question was about Kay Baily Hutchinson quitting the US Senate to run for governor of Texas against the sitting Republican governor. The question was "who was the last US Senator to quit to run for governor against an incumbent of the same party?" Well, my post on Frank Murkowski leaving the Senate to run for Governor didn’t quite answer that question for them. But when I looked to see where the query came from, it was from National Public Radio in Washington DC.

holier-than-thou types - Sometimes I find out that something happened or someone, somewhere said something because I get a rash of searches for the same term. On August 31 I got about ten from various parts of the country for this term, including one from the Naval Command Control & Ocean Surveillance Center in Virginia Beach. I'm not sure why they were all looking for this - I checked the Google search and found nothing that I could connect with this - so I'm not sure if they got exactly what they were looking for, but they did get to a post called Some Context on Holier Than Thou Types.


A Real Stretch

famous people born during solar eclipse - (from New Delhi) I don't think the post on famous people born in 1908 mentioned anyone born during a solar eclipse.


italy visitor center - This was an image search. I get a fair number of people searching images, but I don't usually get to see what search term they used. But I do get to see what picture they got. This person got to Singapore archive pages that has a zillion pictures from Singapore including one post with a picture of the Singapore Visitors Center. This was at least six or seven pages into the search so I guess when the person didn't find what he was looking for on Italy he was willing to look at Singapore. It is a cool picture.

dehydrated spice pills - as it turns out the post on dehydrated beer also contains the words "spice" and "pill."

beer out of cottonwood buds - got to my buds, which included a picture of cottonwood buds, but no beer.

bad feng shui 6 years gap in family ox and sheep - What was this one about? It came from the Philippines. What Do I Know? was #1 out of 868 google hits - my post on the difference between oxen and cows (this is the year of the ox) had every search term except '6' and 'family.'

Supreme Court adjustable microphone - This got to a post on a Karen hill tribe celebration to open a fire break in Northern Thailand. This post highlights the many things they made with bamboo, including an adjustable microphone stand. And then they got the word 'court' from a totally different post about the L.A. County Courthouse. This came up number 4 out of almost 3,000 hits. Note those three dots . . . that separate the different posts.

What Do I know?: Fire Break Ceremony Chiang Dao 3 - Bamboo
It's a fully adjustable microphone stand. There's a smaller piece of bamboo ... Lakers Celebration Traffic on Way to Court · Downtown LA and the County ...
www.whatdoino-steve.blogspot.com/.../fire-break-ceremony-chiang-dao-3-bamboo.html - Cached - Similar -

things for german people to do in idaho - Why not? This was from someone in Denver, who, maybe had German guests coming. The post this got to probably saved him a lot of trouble, it's the one that said that Idaho doesn't exist. It did mention Germany in the post and had stuff on philosophy too.



You Missed This One Google


Hindus in Anchorage - This got to a post called Anchorage as an Abusive Family which has the word Hindus in it. But there is also a post about the Hindu temple in Anchorage which would seem much more on point. This is the kind I mentioned above that are so frustrating.

how to grow tamarind seeds and photo - Another example of getting the searcher to the wrong post. They got to a post on tamarind trees with pictures, but I had a more recent one titled "Growing Tamarind Seeds" with a photo. I'm not sure I gave a lot of advice on how to grow tamarind seeds, but I can tell you from sad experience that once they're up, it helps to keep watering. I've got two now that I'm hoping will come back. I’ve added an update and link to the newer post. But too late for this visitor.

Facts about 1500 - This got to the post about my 1500th sitemeter hit. I'm sure that wasn't what the searcher was looking for. But it did stir me to do a new 'contest' to reward the 123,456th visitor.

black&wait sex - Probably not Google's fault. The searcher needs to spell better. My guess is they were looking for 'black and white.' Here's where a human is better than a machine. Here's the Google blurb the person found:

What Do I know?: Robert Lapage's The Blue Dragon in Berkeley
12 Jun 2009 ... We didn't have the stage simply go black and wait as actors moved ... Hunger - and three other movies · Sex in the Sun - Shameless Blog ...

These are totally different posts, so there was no black&wait sex anywhere in my blog.


repetitive beat ordinance - Not sure what they were looking for, but they got to a post that really had nothing to do with it, except it had the word ordinance. Here's what they found on Google.

What Do I know?: Anti-Sanctuary Ordinance Buried Indefinitely
As for my husband's anti-crime ordinance, what don't you understand? ... Personal insults, rambling tirades,repetitive comments will be blocked. ...
www.whatdoino-steve.blogspot.com/.../anti-sanctuary-ordinance-buried.html - Cached - Similar -


xray tech murders doctor east los angeles,ca - This was a Yahoo search, not Google. They got this blurb:

yahoo search What Do I know?
Ed Feo Partner, Milbank Tweed Hadley & McCloy, LLP, Los Angeles CA ... The xray tech said he couldn't interpret for me, but it was pretty clear the ...
whatdoino-steve.blogspot.com/?widgetType=BlogArchive&widgetId=BlogA... - 219k - Cached

The words "Los Angeles," and "xray tech" are on my blog, but not together on the pages they linked to.


what does the number 85 mean in a person's life - They got to a post about a sign at the Moose's Tooth. Searching the page there was no 85 at all. A few of the other words showed up in the right column of the blog, but not in the post. This looks like an absolute and total miss. I looked at the Google Search this person got and couldn’t even find What Do I Know? in the search results. So maybe it was a one time mistake on their part.




Does Google Have a Sense of Humor?


Not this time around. They even accused What Do I Know? of being a spam blog and threatened to shut it down. Is it because there's a recent post that talks about spam? Or as one commenter suggested, someone marked this blog as spam?