Estimated reading time: 5 minute(s)
It’s always fascinating to me to see the various ways people find this website.
First, of course, are direct visits: people using bookmarks or typing in “gregshead.net” into their browser’s address bar. Then, I know that the main referrer of visitors to GregsHead.net is Facebook.com. Some of that is from links shared by others, some shared by me directly, and probably the majority of it is from the automated daily syndication to the GregsHead.net Facebook page (facebook.com/gregsheaddotnet) of the content originally published here.
Then of course you have the search engines. That’s where it gets interesting! There are of course the standard search terms like, my name, “greg campbell blog”, even just “greg’s head”, and other obvious search phrases. But the best ones are (in the case of this website) the most curious, and, oddly, most common ones clicked through.
Nowadays, these sorts of things can be tracked using fancy do-hickeys and other such thingamajigs. (Otherwise known as Google Analytics, among others.)
Here’s a brief list of the Top 8 Search Phrases and the Posts They Link To from the past three months.
8. “Clean Your Bombilla”
You might not even know what a “bombilla” is, but apparently someone does! And, somehow this person must have had the same problem as me. Unfortunately, I’m not sure they got much help from my post about cleaning your bombilla… I just realized that it’s a good idea to do it! Good to know other yerba mate drinkers are stopping by for a cyber visit, though!
GH Post: Clean Your Bombilla
7. “Why Does Everyone Hate Glenn Beck?”
I have been a Glenn Beck listener and fan for well over a decade… which is well before most people decided to hate him. I think there were plenty of people who hated him, just not an entire segment of the population. 🙂 Well, it really did fascinate me back in 2010 (when the hatred was really ramping up) just how vile and personal many of the attacks on him were becoming. The article actually becomes much less about Mr. Beck, and more about how we (especially Americans) treat each other, and even more, how much—or little—we listen to each other.
GH Post: Why Does Everyone Hate Glenn Beck?
6. “Types of Sucker Fish”
Now this one is interesting, because it was the subject of a recent “From The Archive” post. Apparently, the way people get to this website from that search phrase is not really much of anything from the story (the word “type” is used once), rather, somehow the photo of our beautifully little sucker fishy is the third result out of about 214,000 results for that search phrase. Fascinating! Well, the curious Knowledge Seeker may not learn much about the various types of sucker fish, but they got an entertaining story about how indestructible those little “suckers” are! 🙂
GH Post: Super Sucker Fish!
5. “Hiccough Etymology”
My favorite part about this one is not that the article I wrote and posted is, at this point, becoming quite dated (though, with this subject, I suppose that is rather irrelevant) … it’s that the search term is “hiccough” not “hiccup”! Who spells it “hiccough”??? I guess I did… Click the link and learn what many (apparently) are yearning to know…
GH Post: The Etymology of The Word “Hiccough”
4. (Tie) “Spiral Illusion” and “Focus On The Dot”
Technically, these are #4 and #7, respectively. And interestingly enough, the lower one on the list (“focus on the dot”) maintains the Search Visitor’s interest the most of any other search phrase. (That means, those who click through to GregsHead.net after searching for those words, click through most often to more pages on this website. Crazy what they can track, huh?) This particular post (below) is discovered, like the Sucker Fish post, by a Google Images search. And the best part of all, the post was originally “inspired” by an email forward from my Dad! Nice!
GH Post: Illusions, and maybe also Optical Illusions
THE TOP THREE…
(Are you excited? On the edge of your seat??)
3. “Random Bible Verse Generator”
Really??? #3 is in reference to a very short post from 2008 where I offer a link to a small widget I discovered that displays a random verse from the Bible upon every page load. (You can see it near the bottom of the first of the two sidebars to your right, if you are on the main website…) It would seem that others, even to this day, are in dire need of a random Bible verse generator. Thankfully, they have this 4-year-old post below to guide their way! 🙂
UPDATE, MAY 2012: The creators of this widget emailed me this week and they are discontinuing the service. This post has been removed from GregsHead.net… where are people going to find their random bible verse generator??! 🙂
2. “Thomas Jefferson Rules To Live By”
My favorite part about number two on the list is that this post wasn’t even (mostly) something I wrote! I saw it on a friend’s blog and really liked it (was also reading a bunch of Thomas Jefferson’s writing at the time) and so I shared it on my blog. AND, apparently, it is needed information! (They really are quite interesting, and helpful… click below and read/re-read for yourself.)
GH Post: Ten Rules To Live By — Thomas Jefferson
AND, THE NUMBER ONE, MOST-POPULAR SEARCH PHRASE…
1. “Steve Burns”
Yes! The Steve Burns, aka Steve from Blue’s Clues! Having young kids in the house, we of course have seen our share of the animated blue puppy and her friendly owner, Steve. But, we, like apparently many other folks on the interwebs, were uncertain as to why he so quickly left the fame and fortune of this quite popular preschooler’s TV show, and needed to find out. After a bit of incredibly investigative journalism, Steve Burns current location was discovered and shared! And search after search keeps bringing people to this site to discover the truth: Steve is alive and well! 🙂 You know you’re curious, too …
GH Post: What Ever [sic] Happened To Steve?
And there you have it! The most recently popular search terms bringing people to the pages of this site.
What is the number one overall search term? By far it’s #3 above. But curiously, the #2 overall search phrase (since I began tracking with Google Analytics in 2007) is “fundamental transformation of america” which links people (most likely) to a post I am particularly fond of, actually, titled, The (True) Fundamental Transformation of America.
Now that you have enough reading for the week… better bookmark this post!
Enjoy!