Yeah, Anyway

So, um, it turns out I was sort of wrong about the whole Google thing. You know, the thing where I thought I was so smart and said that the reason I wasn't getting any Google hits was because it was better at filtering out all the irrelevant crap. Yeah, remember when I said that?

Well, it has been brought to my attention that Google in fact has a lag time, or something, so you won't get any hits until some defined amount of time after you've made the post.

This seems to be true. Why do I belive this to be so, you ask? Well, let me tell you!

All of a sudden, I've gotten a barrage of Google hits. They've come on like gangbusters. Well, perhaps not that many, but I've always had a secret desire to use the word "gangbusters," and this seemed like an appropriate place.

You can probably guess what searches led to the hits, and you'd probably be right, but I have resolved to never again mention her name.

I have arrived

I got a Google search hit. Yesssss.

Of course, they were looking for Mandy Moore. Again. I don't know why I keep feeling compelled to mention her name over and over again. I have no idea who she is beyond the one time I saw her on TV, and yet she's taking over my blog.

Alright, that's just a slight exaggeration, but you get my point.

The thing is, the more I mention her, as I'm doing here, the more it probably increases the likelihood of getting search hits related to her.

Basically, I'm creating a monster.

One of the unwritten rules (or so it seems) of having a blog is that you must periodically mention the search terms people use that lead them to your blog. Depending on, well, a lot of things, you can get some really bizarre search strings.

Because this blog hasn't been in existence for long (and therefore still has a low amount of content), I haven't gotten a huge number of search-origin hits, and they've all been pretty tame, thankfully. The last thing I want is a bunch of sickos reading my blog.

Mostly, people who land here are looking for things related to celebrities - Mandy Moore's hairstyle, Renee Zellweger's Oscars dress, Russell Wong's daughter - or, more recently, Clairol makeup mirrors. I'm sorry to say I don't have any celebrities' pictures, and I don't sell beauty products, but I hope this site was helpfull nonetheless.

The thing I find most interesting is not that people are looking for these things, since you can always find someone, somewhere, who is looking for something, no matter how strange, or, conversely, how mundane.

What perplexes me is that all the searches that lead to my blog have been through MSN or Yahoo. For the love of god, why, in this day and age of Google, are people still using any other search engine? I have no doubt that there are many people out there looking for makeup mirrors and celebrity photos using Google, but I don't get hits from those people. The reason for this is that Google works so well that you don't get hits to random sites run by non-professionals that really have nothing to do with what you're looking for. Yes, I mean sites like the one you're currently reading. This one.

I only get hits from MSN and Yahoo searches because those search engines don't work very well at filtering out all the irrelevant crap. (What's that, you say, there's irrelevant crap on the internet!? I know, shocking, isn't it?) This site is about as irrelevant as it gets. If you got here by searching for something, I'm pretty sure you won't find it.

If Google cost money, or for some reason it were much more difficult to use, I suppose I could see why people might not want to use it. But seriously, people? It's free! It's really easy to use! If you can use the internet, you can use Google! There is no excuse - none - for using anything else. And no, I don't work for Google. I just appreciate a good product.

Anyway, here's some helpful advice for all you lost souls who have yet to see the light - do yourself a favor and start using Google in the future. You'll thank me for it, even if you never come back to my blog again.