Disappointing searchers since 2001

I know this has been done to death already, but I’m not that shy about hopping on the space where the bandwagon used to be. It just astounds me, how completely inappropriate a result I am for most of the searches that land people here. Recent disappointments:

  • Yahoo: opera is much faster than ie or netscape using bandwidth test – well, that seems pretty silly. Bandwidth? Don’t they all have to download exactly the same size files? I have heard that Opera is extremely unwilling to give up a cached javascript or style sheet, though, even after you clear your cache and try to force a reload of a changed file. Does that help, or were you looking for something that Opera doesn’t suck at?
  • Google: EVHEAD!: How the Trellix Deal Happened — and What It Means – erm, what would be a good result for searching for the title of a nearly-year-old essay? Clearly, since you know the title word for word, you don’t want the essay itself, which is all I linked to.
  • Google: blogamp – I had high hopes for this one showing me the weblog where I first saw it, but all it showed me was that Olivier Travers just updated his list of mp3 tools from last December to include Blogamp. Surely he didn’t see it here?
  • Google : blogger template – if you want traffic from Blogger users, there are no better keywords to use than blogger template or templates. Obviously, I’m a pretty poor resource, since I use one Blogger template that I stole from glish nine months ago, but I’ve still got pages on the first page for both blogger template and blogger templates. Silly Google.
  • Yahoo : PHP HOST FREE – shouting isn’t going to help: they pretty much all suck big-time, and by the time you get down to results past #61, you should have realized that.
  • Google Canada: comment script for blog – one that I should do well on, since I not only distribute a comment script, I also have the canonical list of comment scripts. Alas, Google thinks that a page where I insulted both Ruzz and Hossein is the best choice.
  • Google: mp3 properties API – sorry, haven’t got a clue what you were after. How about a way to force a link into a Winamp-exported playlist, instead?
  • Daypop: the little prince – thanks to Shannon, I’m not quite as brutal a result for that as I was, but still not very satisfactory, I’ll wager.
  • Yahoo: search envy.nu – why? Oh, sorry. At least I can answer that: search for fanfic site:envy.nu at a real search engine.
  • Google: ie6 web accessories – it baffles me that IE Booster, the kick-ass replacement for Microsoft’s Web Accessories, doesn’t appear in the top ten for this query, but at least I had the answer. First one for which I’m a good result.
  • Google: asp strhref banner – asp: blerg; banners: blerg; strhref: wouldn’t that be a variable name?
  • Google Netherlands: css2 template – remarkable how often people in the Netherlands are delivered to my doorstep only to find me ranting, rather than giving them what they want.
  • Google Canada: “free php web hosts” – sorry, but welcome to 2002 (the year after most of your search results were last updated).

So, there you have it. That’s not an edited list of the searches I’m worst at, just a list of all the search engine entries in my “recent referrer” list. With a total of two searches where I should have been a good result, but only one where Google picked the right page. Lucky for Dave Winer, his long bet that weblogs will outrank the New York Times on top news stories by 2007 doesn’t mention whether or not the weblogs actually have to say anything about the stories.

9 Comments

Comment by Phil Ringnalda #
2002-04-14 23:41:46

Must stop looking at search referrers. Must stop. Someone just searched Google twice and google.yahoo once for radioweblogs, getting me joking about a domain name as the single result all three times. I sincerely hope that he or she figured out how useful spaces can be after the third search.

 
Comment by ruzz #
2002-04-15 00:09:49

hey.. at least you dont have the words big, tool and and ass in your title and slogan. That gets some real interesting searches :P

 
Comment by Phil Ringnalda #
2002-04-15 00:15:50

I feel a tagline coming on…

 
Comment by pixelkitty #
2002-04-15 02:00:37

I get people searching for

”cutie sexy melbourne”

when the fuck did I say that on my page? heh

 
Comment by Shannon #
2002-04-15 11:25:01

Thanks to a recent post, I’ve been getting tons of hits for things like ”Ten Ugliest Rock Stars, ”Ugly Rock Stars,” and ”World’s Ugliest Rock Stars.” It’s really starting to chip away at my self-esteem.

Luckily, though, I got two hits for ”nasty pelvic exam porn.”

 
Comment by Phil Ringnalda #
2002-04-15 11:33:55

Sounds like it’s time for a prominent link to the Official Keith Richards website. After all, it’s our duty to send them on to where they really want to be.

I wouldn’t know where to refer someone looking for ”nasty pelvic exam porn” (what would ”nice pelvic exam porn” look like?), but now I’m glad that Google still isn’t indexing my comments, even though I gave them non-Javascript links to follow. You can keep those searchers – I don’t want them.

 
Comment by pixelkitty #
2002-04-15 21:23:02

I put the word parachute (and variations thereof) on my site the other day. Im going to check the progression of search engine hits for people looking for all things parachute-like.

 
Comment by Shannon #
2002-04-16 17:17:49

Hey! My BlogSnob thingie is on your page right this second. Neat. Never seen that before.

Anyway… I was coming over to tell you I think the classic rock radio station here is using your BlogAmp as a playlist. I heard Bruce, Bonnie, The Grateful Dead and Meatloaf all in a row today at work.

 
Comment by Shannon #
2002-04-16 17:20:24

PK – It seems to me that if I was looking for valuable info on parachuting, I wouldn’t click on a link that looked like this:

”this is a test. parachutes parachute parachuting parachutes
parachute parachuting parachutes parachute parachuting parachutes … ”

Yanno? You cutie sexy Melbourne, you.

 
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