The Searchers

I've seen it suggested on several occasions that weblogs are a problem for search engines because we churn out text with such reckless disregard for crisp categorization. Words and phrases that would only otherwise be found in close proximity in highly specialized -- and possibly even useful -- contexts now collide with gay abandon in the attention-deficient stream of consciousness outpourings of pages like this.

Now, this seems a rather flat and joyless analysis, suggesting that inappropriate juxtapositions are, well, inappropriate; and also a pretty narrow one, since there have been frivolous and personal pages on the web since about five minutes after it was invented, and even if there were no weblogs there would still be plenty of red herrings to confuse the spiders of Google et al.

Still, having just glanced at some of the search strings which have led people here, perhaps there's something in it. Most of them, not surprisingly, are looking for walky-talkies; it could be said that I've deliberately misled them, but I'm not too worried about that. Surprisingly many relate to this post, not all of them about tattoos. None, as far as I can make out, are looking for porno or anything sexual, which is also quite surprising; no doubt that'll change if ever get to writing about my life as a pornographer :)

Nearly all the searchers will have left disappointed, I imagine, since this site has nothing useful to say about, say, "perfect young ladies" or "heck who don't" or "villagers pitchforks frankenstein photo", though I can see why a search engine might think it had.

But what I really can't help wondering is what the people looking for "orna ni chionna" (for which this is Google's second highest hit) made of Max's double dactyl about her. It can hardly have been what they were expecting. Was one of them Ms Ni-Chionna herself? Was she amused?

Perhaps next time she searches she'll wind up on this entry instead, and tell us :)
Posted by matt at October 7, 2003 05:24 PM