One of the fun things about .Text (the engine running this blog) is that it captures referrer headers supplied by browsers who click through to pages on the site from elsewhere on the net (well, referer headers, if you prefer it the way it's actually spelt in the HTTP spec. Honestly. Wouldn't have taken much to run a spell check over the RFC before publishing it, now, would it?) . Anyway, in the admin pages, I can see just how people have been hyperlinked across to things I've written. For instance, a recent referrer came from the google.com search results page for "mothkind". I take some pride in the fact that when you search for mothkind, the highest pageranked site on the internet is mine. And also a certain amount of curiosity about the solitary person who tapped that precise search-term into Google. My page is in interesting and curious company - "One small step for you will be aa [sic] giant leap
for mothkind"; "GIANT MOTH ATTACK!!!"; and "Albert the Moth", who apparently says, "I have no interest in personal glory, I only wish to work
for the advancement of all mothkind!" - but according to Google's highly developed algorithms, which were written by people with advanced PhDs in the field, this site is the world's greatest authority on mothkind. Other top search queries which have led people to these pages include (and I promise I'm not making these up):
- herding ants (tiny shepherd seeks help online...)
- noel edmonds (via msn.co.uk, apparently, although it's not in the first few pages of results, so this person must have been quite perseverant in their search for information about cuddly old Noel)
- argos book of dreams (this one - and variants thereon - is surprisingly common. Argos PR department take note)
- hack an asp.net login page (I don't think they found what they were after here)
- plug in air fresheners depression (my, that's specific)
- sweet smelling vomit (Link apparently provided by google.ca, which ranks this site as the fifth most relevant to that search term. Thanks, Google (thoogle).)
- peter serafinowicz and sarah alexander and sarah alexander and peter serafinowicz (you're not going to get any better results that way round, you know)
- get_aspx_ver squashed (someone looking for techno-googlewhacks, perhaps?)
- no authorisation problem (if you have no authorisation problem, what are you searching for?)
- hiring .net programming interview "skills" (the quotes round 'skills' really aren't selling you...)
All of which goes to show that you have no idea, when you post anything up on the net, who will find it, or what they'll be looking for at the time. So however you got here, welcome, crazy search people, wherever you are.