gor[b] Paul Gorbould: Words and Pictures

Prostitutes of Orillia

I recently added a traffic counter to this blog. There are lots of them out there, but I decided to go with the free Site Meter - it's that little rainbow Rubik's Cube at the bottom of the right hand column. But I've put my settings at private - you don't need to see the pitiful traffic levels I get.

Site Meter keeps track of basic site traffic, including daily and total visits and page views. It also tracks some information on who is visiting and what they are looking at: IP information, location, browser type, number of pages and duration of stay, entry and exit pages.

But the really interesting stat, the one I can't help but pore over, is referrals. If someone got to my blog through a link or a search, it tells me what that last click was. It's always nice to know who is linking to you and driving traffic to your site, of course. But it's the searches that fascinate me.

See, this blog doesn't have any real information on it. There's no research, no facts, just a few opinions and observations from one lonely guy. Which means that if you are searching for something, and end up on my blog, you are probably going to be disappointed.

To you, I'm sorry.

But, now that's said, let's expose what these suckers have been searching for. Here are 11 of the most recent searches that landed the poor internaut on my blog:

mayo shattuck milwaukee (Google UK)
jackie rogers jr (Google)
Greg Frers (CBC.ca search of all web)
casino-rama ontario geographic-coordinates (Google)
gormenghast (Google blogsearch)
the teamakers (Google)
snl (Technorati tag search)
Michael Mayo, milwaukee (Google)
zed cbc (Technorati blog search)
john saul couchiching (Google)
prostitutes of orillia (Google)

Prostitutes of Orillia?!?

First off: bad idea. Second, someone was searching really hard, because I'm link #19 on that search. The phrasing strikes me as odd, too, like they have a union or something.

OK, I understand Google's logic - I used the word "Orillia" in this post and this one, and "prostitute" in this one.

But that's a hell of a stretch. And how can I possibly be the #11th result for "john saul couchiching"? Or 27th for "jackie rogers jr"?

Now, I'm a fan of Technorati and Google has a new Blog Search (beta). But the sort of failed searches listed above strike me as a good reason to exclude blogs from Google searches, an option that Google was supposed to add at one point.

Does anyone know an easy way to do this? Adding "-blog" to your search doesn't really help, since it also eliminates all web pages that mention blogs, which is a lot of them these days. (For example, searching for "+gorbould -blog" eliminates not only my blog, but my website, which links to the blog.)

Looking at the above list, I really feel sorry for the other Chairman Mayos (still snickering, though.) I'm getting their traffic, and Site Meter says nobody is exiting to the correct sites. Chairmen: better get a blog, and start typing. Otherwise some smartass like me is going to be your top search result.

It almost makes me reconsider offhandedly writing about innocent bystanders - they'll be saddled with and misdirected by my crap forever.

Actually I don't feel that bad, not in this case... I just found out that Mayo A. Shattuck III was on the short list to become the next commissioner of the NFL.

He lost. But he's obscenely rich, a big fan of building nuclear reactors, and his wife is a Baltimore Ravens cheerleader.

Come to think of it, I'm not in the least bit sorry. In fact, I'd be happy to be the #1 site for Mayo A. Shattuck III, worldwide. Someone should drop a Google bomb on him. You know, everyone gives some other site a link or two using the name Mayo A. Shattuck III? Again, that's Mayo A. Shattuck III. It's spelled "Mayo A. Shattuck III."

Failing that, there's always my Prostitutes of Orillia e-business...