gor[b] Paul Gorbould: Words and Pictures

Information pollution?

I thought I should do a follow-up on my search engine blog results, because (navel-gazing aside) it tells me a lot about how engines like Google work, and fail miserably. (see: "miserable failure"...)

[Original entry: Prostitutes of Orillia]

The following is a list of the major internet searches that have landed people on my blog. I've divided it into two categories - "relevant searches" (the content of my blog may actually be of use to the searcher) and "not very relevant searches" (the surfer won't likely find my blog of any use at all.)

Then, there are the juicy ones at the end. Hey, stop skipping ahead!

Relevant Searches

An improvement from last week - there actually are some relevant searches. Here are the main ones:

• paul gorbould - 3X, all Google - Bingo!
  But should I be worried? Will I be visited by a stalker, or a libel lawyer? I also note that my dead CBC page has been bumped down to the fourth spot via Google.com, but remains #1 on Google.ca. The Corp still has some pull nationally!)
• CBC blogger (Google) - OK, that fits.

• RUMOUR CBC (Google - Uh oh, Alan is gonna go off on me...)

• putting a counter on my blog (Blogger blog search)

• etymology chairman (2X, via Google UK and later Google New Zealand. Is this a hot topic overseas? I thought I was the only one so pedantic.)

• "chairman"+manager+sexist (Google Australia - again with this?)

• feedwordpress don't do updates (Google – See Peter Jane's comments to this post)

Not Very Relevant Searches

Once again, I'm alarmed at how much search traffic gets diverted to my blog. Why can't sites like mine be filtered out? And why do they rank so highly?

• "eric tillman" and "eric tillman" biography (Google – Now that Tillman is the new Saskatchewan GM, I guess the CFL on CBC hosts page isn't very relevant either)

• mark kingwell (Blogger blog search beta)

• casino-rama ontario geographic-coordinates (Google)

• twins (2X, Blogger blog search beta)
• craig & murray oliver (Google - tee hee)
• Gor (Google – huh?)
• titus groan audio (Google UK)

Searches of Note

These ones are really interesting. At least I think so...

• Gor Gor hungry! Gor Gor want eat! (Google – WTF is that!?!)
• Prostitutes (2X, Technorati tag search)
  I'm second, after "fat Milf Gets slammed Hard". Alarmingly, these hits are coming from Taiwan.
• Hearty Thanks (Google)
  Are you kidding me!? I'm the #1 link for "Hearty Thanks"? There are 3.8 MILLION reference to those words, and 180,000 to that exact phrase, and I come up first. Why? Geeze, I *pwn* teh internets.
• mayo shattuck III (Google)
  See, I'm already #20 worldwide; #19 is the Constellation Energy announcement that he's now Constellation Energy's president and CEO. And the kicker? This search came from constellation.com, the company's ISP.Is Chairman President Mayo googling himself?

I'm starting to find this guy really interesting, and not at all my kind of person.

According to sites like this one, Chairman Mayo was also chairman and private banking head for Deutsche Bank's Alex Brown Unit, which conspiracy theorists say was one of the bin Laden family's banks of choice. He quit suddenly on Sept. 12, 2001, bailing on a contract said to be worth between $7-13 million a year. Those same theorists mention his name in association with some ugly insider trading that allegedly took place right before the September 11 crisis.

Oh, and his banking boss became executive director of the CIA.

Oh, and his company's business model seems to be picking up the pieces of deregulated energy trading in the wake of Enron's collapse.

Oh, and some people say his company drove electricty rates up 72 per cent this summer, and is apparently big on union busting and pollution.

And did I mention he's married to a cheerleader, and wanted to run the NFL?

Note: While it's fun to pick on Chairman Mayo, I don't think any of the above links are terribly credible, and I'm not about to let myself become one of those internet crazies with a hate-on for someone in power. I'm simply amused to discover that allowing himself to be called "Chairman Mayo" was only the first step in a long line of questionable behaviour.

UPDATE:

As it to prove my point about irrelevant search results, my site has been hammered with hits today. The reason: my offhand link to miserable failure at the top of this entry. See, the Google page explaining the "miserable failure" search results also lists recent "links to this post". I've been at or near the top of the list today, resulting is a boatload of clicks.

I've had 86 referrals from that link in the past five hours (including surfers from af.mil, globeandmail.ca, microsoft.com, usda.gov) and my traffic has gone up five-fold. And I'm sad to say most of them will be disappointed in what they find here, which is not "miserable failure" related - but perhaps my rants about the shortcomings of Google will be of some use, somehow.)

On the other hand, if I were a cheapskate with an ad-heavy site who wanted to grab web traffic any way I could...........