If you’re a blogger, and perhaps even if you’re not, you’ve probably been introduced to the topic of keywords. These of course play a role in determining sites that come up during web searches.
Though I’m an analytical person by nature and education, I try not to spend too much time on blog-related statistics. It can be a big time waster, despite being very interesting and at times very useful. You just have to pick your spots and spend time wisely when looking at the performance of your blog, considering all the other things to do….like writing blog posts, for example!
That said, I recently took a look at the analytics of my web traffic, to see what people are searching for when they find my site. Now, I already knew (as any blog owner does) what the most popular keywords were, but hadn’t spent time looking at the more obscure ones. You know, the keywords that are the one-off types that randomly bring someone using Google to a website.
Many of the search terms that brought just one visitor to Squirrelers were logical variations of personal finance-related topics that are covered here. Others were quite eye opening….and humorous as well.
Here are some of the “interesting” search terms that apparently led a few folks to Squirrelers
- “How far do you need to take a squirrel to relocate?” Well, this website is about squirreling away money, not squirreling away squirrels! So the short answer is I don’t know.
- “How can I dress as the prince song raspberry beret for Halloween?” My question is: How did that get somebody to Squirrelers?! My second question is: How do you dress as a song?
- “Moving teen in the toilat”. Not sure what a “toilat” is, but YIKES anyway
- “Most Cleaver holiday gifts 2010”. I recommend going to a Leave it to Beaver site for better guidance on that topic.
- “Nothing brings me extreme excitement”. I’m sorry for this person!
- “Kicking Mom for $400,000”. I’m sorry for this person’s Mom!”
- “Wild Waitresses”. I’ve seen a crafty waitress, but never a wild one just yet
- “Reason men leave 50% tip to waitresses”. Perhaps this has something to do with hoping for the item above?
- “Play Pirates vs Ninjas and other things”. Wish I could help here, though I’ve never played that game with my kids.
- “What kind of a teen am I?” Don’t know, sorry.
- “Those who bring nothing to a potluck but eat like a pig”. I might be able to help by referring you to the post about The Extractor, to find out more about such characters
- “Being a cheapskate & raising a family”. Ok, this blog is a good resource for answers to that question!
- “Why don’t humans exterminate alligators?” Ok, this blog is not a good resource for answers to that question
- “Wierd animals”. That’s a wierd – err, I mean weird thing to look for here!
- “Rewarming breakfast tacos” I don’t recall ever posting anything about breakfast tacos. This sounds less than appetizing anyway!
- “We gonna have lots of fun eating crayons” I appreciate the enthusiasm, but this sounds even less appetizing than rewarming breakfast tacos.
- “Be easy and free when you’re drinking with me” Ok, while we’re on a positive and fun-loving roll here, I’ll quit while ahead
Clearly, it’s interesting how different people can find their way to a given website!
My Questions for You:
- If you’re a blog owner, what are some of the craziest things people have searched for when reaching your site?
- For everyone, blog owner or not – what’s the strangest place you’ve been directed to when using an unrelated or even innocuous search term?
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This is a funny post Squirreler! “How far do you need to take a squirrel to relocate?” I can’t even begin to imagine what info the person was seeking!
“Why don’t humans exterminate alligators?” Why dude, why?!
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“Chicken Legs always slimy”
“illegal pot growing un house rental and how landlord can protect attic”
Funny List
Lol, yours are hilarious.
I haven’t had anything too crazy yet. So far the most unusual one was:
“don’t have nearly enough blog”
Not too weird.
Haha, yours are pretty funny. First gen has some funny ones too.
Most of mine are retiring or investing related.
The only somewhat funny one I have is this – “arse kicking machine.”
Here is one that I would like to do – “retire to be a stay at home dad ”
A little creepy? – “where does retireby40 live ”
retirebyforty recently posted..What 1 Buy – 151 Million Dollars Mega Million Jackpot!!!
My Google traffic is like 2.5%, so needless to say, I haven’t had anything unpredictable.
As for searching, I had some friends who were elementary school teachers when whitehouse.com was a porn website. Back then, network blocks weren’t as easy to implement, so they just had to hope and pray that their students didn’t accidentally go there when searching for the real White House (located at whitehouse.gov).
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I have something like 1500 key words. I got as far as the e’s. Here are my top 3.
“am i crazy to have paid 5 years nanny taxes ”
Short answer? Yes. Put the kid in preschool.
“i are not kind of girl who should be”
me either…maybe.
“excellent excuses for being unemployed for 16 months”
how about trying to find a job?
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I think the worst internet search results I got was when I was in high school. We were assigned to find old, out of date laws. So I went to my trusty search engine and typed in ‘old law’. This was before the days of google so I was probably on altavista or maybe webcrawler.
This brought up the biggest list of porn sites because they all had the disclaimer ‘by LAW you must be 18 years OLD to enter this site’ I was probably 13-14 at the time and my dad was in the room with me.
Good post, Squirrelers. Don’t know why, but it brings to mind Mondegreens.
Our poodle is stupidly fond of eating crayons… and then throwing up in color.
Some of my search terms:
“energy dog manure” – (??)
“my parrents buy new furniture i dont want” (no doubt a rebellious teenager)
“inflation of cheese” (does cheese make you gassy?)
“testicular pain after shoveling snow” (poor fella, this don’t sound too good)
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Well, I was trying to get to the website for Dick’s sporting goods and I guessed the name of the site wrong. You can only imagine what happened.
I don’t know how far you need to take a squirrel to relocate. I think he will come back home no matter how far you take him.
One of my favorite search terms for my site was ‘fishing watches’
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[...] Squirreler’s had a very amusing post about different keywords people have typed that led them to his blog. [...]
This is like show-n-tell!
I get a lot about swelling fingers. In fact a picture I posted with my bee-stung swelling thumb is a high ranking image in the world of googling swelling fingers. Who woulda thunk?!
Here’s a few from yesterday:
purple velvet cake
penniless parent where is she (I didn’t realize she was lost- I hope they found her!)
chicken plucker (if your a vegan you may want to skip my posts on chicken farming)
molly’s feet (hmmm…I don’t even know what to say)
name of syndrome where people forget the names of common objects (yes I did write a post on how I’ve forgotten the names of most of my nouns)
cannot remember faces, names, movies i’ve seen and books or articles i’ve read (obviously I’m not alone)
[...] For a bit of fun, see this post from Squirrelers on Crazy Keywords [...]
Just what I needed for a Saturday morning. Funny stuff! I didn’t find anything too funny, but I got this one. Guess SEO and keywords aren’t an exact science, yet.
“you can question your insanity”
Yeah, I do it all the time.
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Most of mine have the word “boomer” or “retirement” in them so not very funny. “Spanx Financials” did stand out though.
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Everyone – thanks for sharing your interesting keywords here! It’s often funny what directs people to websites
Squirrelers, I love it! I’ve got some pretty wacky ones on my site around zombies. I did a post last Halloween and apparently it was hit. I get keywords like “best car for zombies” and “zombie driving car” every day
.
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CNC – that’s funny….what is a good car for Zombies? For me, it was a rant I did on this lady alligator hunter that’s the source of many funny keywords – including the one I mentioned in the post.
You sure have a diversified source of traffic
I would love if you make this post once per quarter as I find it hilarious.
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Beating The Index – Glad you enjoyed it, and thanks for the suggestion. I’ll consider it!
Can we at least agree that ninjas can take out pirates?
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Evan – sure, if that works for you, we can go with it.
Those are hilarious. I’ll have to check. I don’t visit my stats too often!
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[...] has a light-hearted blog post, a post looking at some Crazy Keywords. He says “it’s often funny to see the keywords people use to find their way to your blog. [...]