Thursday, May 17, 2007

Searching for meaning

With all of my recent focus on my exams, I had kind of blocked the fact that we're going away for the weekend--a now annual trip back to where we were living before packing it up for Canada. We'll be staying with a friend and going to an activity at my old school, plus several touristy sorts of things. I really am looking forward to all of it--except the fact that I desperately need to pack now.

So a fairly easy post tonight and one I've been thinking about writing for awhile. Time for a look at the searches that bring people (other than my usual readers) here. I've decided to break it down by category.

  1. Mice and their nests. Still the most common search at almost 50%, though I think there are two subgroups: those who have unwanted pests and those who have caged pets. I can't always tell which intent is guiding the searcher, but the difference is clearer when considering strings like "mouse in couch" and "material to give mouse for nest."
  2. Environmental. My "Global Warming Wednesday" posts bring me up for a number of searches. Three topics in particular are recurring: bisphenol A free plastics, grocery bags (plastic, canvas, string all get hits), and clothing material (particularly Modal and Tencel). If they're getting the info they need from my posts, I hope that the links get them what they're after.
  3. Battlestar Galactica. Now I haven't written that much on BSG, despite my particular fondness (read: borderline obsession) with it. I have to admit that it fills me with glee to discover that I am the #4 site for the search "tigh cylon," which is in fact a search I see a couple times a week. And yes, I'm still trying to figure out how that's possible and am not sure I can wait until January 2008 for answers! Right now I'm thinking about watching a couple episodes a week, from the beginning, again.
  4. Pregnancy. In particular, I get hits on "slow rising hcg." I don't come up until the 5th page of this search, but it doesn't surprise me that people looking for this information look through so many pages. I did too when this happened during my pregnancy with Scooter--and there was almost no helpful information on this topic online at the time. Everything I read pointed to miscarriage, but Scooter's still here, more than 4 years later. Of course, these searchers usually end up on one of my posts from the miscarriage I just had, and I feel obligated to point out that I have no idea about the change in my HCG levels during that pregnancy.
  5. Misc. What more should I say about things like "toronto western horrible" (I actually wasn't saying Toronto Western was horrible, though I didn't particularly want to deliver there) and "crocs sweaty" (they certainly can be). But the one that takes the cake? "coloring pages book of revelations," which landed the searcher on a short post about the cake I was going to make for Scooter's birthday. Apparently "coloring pages" matched up with my discussion of loot bags for his classmates; the other part came from a long, rambling comment by some crazy. I have to wonder what the searcher thought upon finding him/herself reading the blog of a lesbian atheist!
P.S. I will have some internet access on my trip, but am not sure how much I will be posting. What's the etiquette for posting on a blog from the house of a friend who doesn't know about the blog?

3 comments:

Suz said...

ckHa! I don't know -- I've surreptitiously posted from all sorts of places, including a public library (making sure the clear the cache afterwards), so I say post away!

Bea said...

Your blog-title-related searches are so much more innocuous than mine. Sigh. One came up today saying "bubs bre*sts." (Those two words are meant to be synonyms, by the way. P*rn searchers are not known for their excellent spelling.)

Laural Dawn said...

I love the search terms!!! People look for the weirdest things. But I particularly enjoy the Revelations colouring pages. really, that would be an interesting book of the Bible to attempt to turn into colouring pages.