How Google Search Terms Have Ruined My Life

Dec 23 2008

Who reamed Roger Rabbit?

I seriously do not know, but apparently my blog is one place to find the answer to this important question.

Although it is a bit deflating to realize how many of my hits must be irritating mistakes to the people who visit, overall, checking out how people found my blog via Google search terms used to be fun.

A lot of people come to the post Top Nine Most Romantic Love Scenes in Romance by Googling “top love scenes.”

I do feel sorry for all the people looking for “orgasm on command” who hope to find some assistance here, but instead find this post.

Some of the other terms are pretty amusing:

“transforming men into pretty sluts”

“luscious butts”

“oldhumansex” (one word, of course)

“rfp tofurkey”

I wonder how many pages of Google search results the folks looking for “Jon Stewart”  had to wade through to find my blog, because a search for him yields over 6 million hits, and I’m pretty sure my Hanukkah post is not in the top, oh, 5.99 million.

Sometimes people (authors, reviewers) are Googling themselves, never an activity you want to be caught doing.

And I’ve lost count of how many folks found my blog looking for the name of the cover model for Lisa Kleypas’s Seduce Me at Sunrise.

My absolute favorite has to be “I saw something nasty in the wood shed”, which is a line from a terrific movie, Cold Comfort Farm. I used it in my review of Nora Roberts’ Born in Fire.

But I now realize there is a dark side to  search terms.

Sometimes people are looking for spoilers, and it is a great and terrible irony that those people are sometimes spoiling me by doing so. There is nothing more disappointing than being halfway through a series like Sookie Stackhouse or the Black Dagger Brotherhood or the Twelve Houses and finding out what happens in the book I haven’t read.

I guess I can display more self control and just not look at the search terms, but that would require not visiting my stats page and that’s way more self control than I have.

Hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas!

14 responses so far

  • 1
    Violet says:

    so true. I cannot NOT look at my stats too. The search terms I mostly find are related to serial killers. I had done a review on the book ‘World famous serial killers’.

    I didn’t know so many people are interested in serial killers. The worst search terms are the ones that suggest someone sinister is behind those search terms.

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  • 2
    carolyn jean says:

    Wait a minute, I slogged through that whole post and I don’t get to find out who reamed Roger Rabbit???

    It’s funny to see what people land on other blogs for. I’m addicted to my stats, too. My creepiest one is where I did this post on my mom wanting to go to the Sex in the City movie on her 70th birthday, and I had some flip title like, my 70 year old mother the sex fanatic, but it drew HORRIBLY disturbing searches right away. I changed the title but it still lives on in google land. I hate getting those hits!

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  • 3
    Jessica says:

    carolyn jean wrote:

    Wait a minute, I slogged through that whole post and I don’t get to find out who reamed Roger Rabbit???

    Unfortunately, it was Jessica.

    ReplyReply
  • 4
    Ana says:

    ^
    ^
    ^

    LOL

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  • 5
    KMont says:

    The weirdest search term I used to get was “Anita Blake panties”, which made me gag. I don’t know if there’ some kind of products for sale, but since the books now have Anita as some slave to sex with everyone, it doesn’t paint a pretty pic.

    But I’ve never been spoiled on a book through search terms. How odd.

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  • 6
    Christine says:

    My number of daily blog hits has practically doubled ever since I posted a review of the Coldplay concert I went to in October 2008. Imagine that? People from all over the world wanting to read a Coldplay concert review and they get mine? LOLOLOL!!

    BTW, you’ve got the coolest tag cloud I’ve ever seen! :D

    Happy Hanukkah, Jessica! :)

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  • 7
    Jessica says:

    KMont wrote:

    The weirdest search term I used to get was “Anita Blake panties”]

    Ewwwwwwww…would those be the panties her mother laid out for her? (Any Seinfeld fans?)

    @ Christine:
    That was a great concert review! And thanks!

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  • 8
    Thea says:

    Wait, wait, Jessica Rabbit is Roger Rabbit’s wife, right? ;)

    This is hilarious–Ana and I love looking at our stats and google search phrases. More often than not, there are a bunch of hilarious ones. I think one of the most popular google searches to our site is “Poison Ivy Adult Costume” (we had a poll once about regrettable superhero/villain costumes). Every day without fail. I never knew Poison Ivy costumes were in such high demand!

    Another thing I’ve learned from stat trackers–some people have no idea how to use search engines. We get some of the most convoluted queries (once there was one that was something like: “the one book where the goblin kisses the princess and everything turns out happy in the end because the king says thank you and the unicorn jumps over the magic rainbow”). Truly bizarre.

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  • 9
    Jessica says:

    Thea wrote:

    Wait, wait, Jessica Rabbit is Roger Rabbit’s wife, right?

    Yes, and that’s the only connection I can think of to this blog. I swear.

    We get some of the most convoluted queries (once there was one that was something like: “the one book where the goblin kisses the princess and everything turns out happy in the end because the king says thank you and the unicorn jumps over the magic rainbow”). Truly bizarre.

    See, now that’s what I mean. A perfectly awesome story … spoiled!

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  • 10
    RfP says:

    My absolute favorite has to be “I saw something nasty in the wood shed”, which is a line from a terrific movie, Cold Comfort Farm.

    I love that someone’s searching for that! It’s actually in the book too, and equally creepy:

    “I cannot bear it. There have always been Starkadders at Cold Comfort. You mustn’t go… none of you must go…. I shall go mad! I saw something nasty in the woodshed. Ah – ah – ah-”

    Not sure what to say about the inexplicable fame of my tofurkey business… except check back in 2009 for my new high-fiber product, treebarkey.

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  • 11
    Jessica says:

    RfP wrote:

    Not sure what to say about the inexplicable fame of my tofurkey business… except check back in 2009 for my new high-fiber product, treebarkey.

    I was wondering how long it would take you to fess up.

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  • 12
    Kate says:

    Oh my gosh, I have never much delved into my search term stats. It is fascinating! And sad…most of my hits have to do with a coworker who recently passed away.

    Though there are some that make me giggle outright: ‘”oksana chusovitina” lick’ (I have no idea!), “corpulent babies, armed with quivers and bows room” (from The Lost Duke of Wyndham), gym women pants wicking smelly (???)

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  • 13

    [...] been over at Jessica’s blog Racy Romance Reviews and I stumbled upon her post for google search terms and the mysterious question that crops up time and [...]

  • 14

    Hey – I found out who the male model is for Seduce Me at Sunrise and I’ve nominated him to be #8 in my Search for Fabio series.

    http://www.loveromancepassion.com/mr-eight-in-the-search-for-fabio/

    ReplyReply
  • 15
    Robert says:

    haha… i googled define:pingback and landed here… you were right up there with wiki :)

    ReplyReply

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