The Vagaries Of Google For Bloggers

Yesterday I began getting hits for something I posted a year and a half ago:

Friday, February 03, 2012

Nobodyhere: Digital Genius - The Most Brilliant Website I've Ever Experienced

This happens now and then.  Somehow a photo or a post moves up on google's algorithm and people start showing up at the blog.  Sitemeter, less and less frequently, shows me the actual search terms people used.  I'm not sure why, but I don't fret over it.

In the Nobodyhere case, people were coming using google, but not one of the sitemeter reports showed the search term.  I googled "Nobodyhere" but What Do I Know didn't show up.

This morning they were still coming.  This time I tried "The Most Brilliant Website" and bingo, the Nobodyhere post showed up number 5 on google. 

I really don't know for sure what that means either since google personalizes the searches and so when I search I'll get a different list than others will get.  And I don't know why, seemingly out of the blue, this post suddenly got a more prominent placement.  Sometimes, when I suddenly get hits for a specific post - often about a person - it indicates to me that the person is in the news.  I can google a bit and find out what's happened - they were appointed to a new position, they've been arrested, or there's some other new story about them.  But this one was more like the time when my post about J's broken ankle suddenly (like overnight), a year or so later, was getting lots of hits.  At that time, a picture of an ankle that I borrowed (with attribution) suddenly got near the top on google image search.  But that one had search terms attached.  I could see what people googled.  The oddest part about this one is that none have had search terms. 

People from around the world finding that post through google:

East Brunswick, New Jersey; Cebu City, Philippines; Jakarta, Indonesia; Songkhla, Thailand; Winter Park, Florida; Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam; Brampton, Canada are a few of the locations. 

Blog Musings

When I first started blogging I did quite a few posts about my attempts to figure out how to use this blogging medium and my minor struggles and triumphs.  I was learning about blogging and that was a fair topic to cover.  It got me assistance some times and perhaps helped other bloggers.  And I thought it was important for readers who are not bloggers to understand what was going on behind the scenes.

My posts about the process of blogging have been much less frequent lately, in part because I got comfortable with the tools I was using and stopped stretching and learning new tricks.  I'm somewhat ok with that because it allows me to concentrate on other content.  But getting comfortable is also a bad sign.  It means I'm not learning.  And I do need to pay more attention to making the blog more usable.

I've come to realize that I've got a lot of posts (over 4000)  here - google hits to old posts is one way I get the point - including some that are pretty good.  I need to help readers find some of those Golden Oldies - probably using the tabs on top - like the tabs for the Redistricting Board and the Anchorage International Film Festival.  This (these?) tab would give some better organization and guidance to other topics I've covered over the years, but not in the same concentrated way as the Board and the Festival.

I'm telling you all this as a way of committing myself publicly to do it.  So bug me if you don't see any progress in the next couple of months.

Meanwhile go visit the Nobodyhere post.  Or just go directly to the site by clicking on the image below which I took from Nobodyhere. 

 

It's a unique site by a sick (in a brilliantly and positive way) mind in, I'm guessing, Holland.  It's interactive and fun.