Searching for sense
Thursday, January 27, 2011 
Ever since publishing my I wanna be HGTV'd post, I've been inundated by visitors landing here via a search for "HGTV." I'm happy to have the hits but feeling a tad guilty that somehow many of those arriving think this site -- despite the granny panties hanging on the line above -- really is HGTV and proceed to request help with their kitchens, yards and double-wides.
I'm baffled.
So I decided to use my nifty Squarespace analytics tools to figure out how and why they've clicked to Grandma's Briefs when searching for HGTV. I hoped what I'd find would assuage the bit of guilt I feel for unknowingly duping some folks into thinking I can offer them help with their downtrodden homes.
Then I clicked over to my "Search Engine Queries Summary" and saw the number of searches ... and immediately gave up plans to assuage guilt, for in the past week, there have been 598 searches using keyword variations of HGTV (believe it or not, there apparently are variations of HGTV). That's FIVE HUNDRED AND NINETY EIGHT people who ended up on Grandma's Briefs instead of the HGTV website.
Why those 598 people might think the words "Grandma's" and "Briefs" are in any way related to "Home" and "Garden" -- regardless of what Google or Bing or Yahoo might say -- I don't know. And why, if they did go ahead and click out of curiosity, they would go so far as to honestly believe this site is the place to request help with their homes and comment with a request, I really don't know.
Like I said, I'm baffled.
The duped and downtrodden will have to remain such as I don't have the time -- and no longer the inclination -- to try to make sense of such things. (I did, though, take the time to tweet the HGTV Twitter account asking them to please help the confused folks who think I can offer them design assistance. No tweet back ... yet.)
Funny what you find, though, when you dig into a blog's analytics tools. In addition to the 598 hits to my site resulting from searches for HGTV (plus several other hits completely unrelated to grandparenting or grandmas or even briefs -- ya know, the things I do blog about), I actually did have visitors arriving via searches related to grandparenting and grandmas. Sort of.
Herein lies the "sort of." Below are the past week's grandma-related searches that baffle me most (the preceding number is search count):
2 how do i distance myself from my grandbaby (This is so not what Grandma's Briefs is about. How did such a search land them here? Funny thing is, it wasn't just one crabby grandma with intimacy issues searching for an answer, it was two!)
2 what should grandma carry in her purse (Meh. Sort of makes sense. Maybe my Grandma's Bag post lured them here.)
1 why are our grandkids always with the other grandparents? (I'm a jealous grandma. I admit it. But I didn't think it was that obvious.)
1 told grandma want a kiss for birthday (This one saddens me. I hope the grandchild in search of a kiss got one.)
1 craw cookie monster step by step (What the cuss is a 'craw cookie monster'?)
1 happy granmas (Okay, yeah, we do have those here.)
1 eating happy granmas (But we don't do this to them!)
1 www.verybiggestanimal (Hmmm ... and hmmm again. What more is there to say?)
1 hatch-n-grow dinosaur egg (Now this one makes sense. Glad to know I'm an expert on these, at least to the degree folks come here to find out more.)
1 grandma's tales for humidity (I do offer up a lot of hot air here, but no humidity. I don't think.)
Baffling, right? If you can make sense of these, do let me know.
I'm off to do a little searching of my own. To find out what the heck "craw cookie monsters" are. They just might be something worth adding to the Recipe Box -- or to News to Use as a warning to my dear readers to beware.
Who knows?
Photo credit: stock.xchng
Today's question:
Which search engine is your favorite and how often do you use it?
Reader Comments (15)
I actually use goodsearch.com. Every time I search for something I earn money for our church. It's only a penny per search but a lot of people from our church use it and we make a few hundred dollars a year.
You'll have to let us know what craw cookie monsters are....sounds interesting.
...and this are just the tame ones :) There are a million queries you really don't want to know about out there.
I'm lazy and stick to Google.
Holy crap, this was a funny post! I'm STILL laughing about eating grandmas and craw cookie monsters. I had actually thought about doing a similar post because people find me in the weirdest (and sometimes disturbing) ways. And then I always wish I could see exactly how disappointed they are to end up on a goofy dog blog.
I google. I've tried other search engines and just get frustrated. And I google a LOT every day. Some of it is for work and some of it is for finding out how to get HGTV'd. By the way, can you help me out with that?
Your search efforts were an interesting lesson for me.
Also interesting to see the things some grandmas are searching for. I hope you find and share an answer about the craw cookie monster.
I google and use my aol.
Haha! I went back to that HGTV post and read some of the comments... How can people be so confused? Too funny.
I use Google everyday!
I don't even KNOW how to use any search engines except Google but, if you just let these people think they've accomplished their HGTV goal, you'll have eliminated 598 competitors from your own request. Good job.
I crack up at some of my analytic searches. Yours are even better than mine!
I'm all about the Google now days!
Funny! Love the 'grandmas tales for humidity'. I use google all the time. It's as if I have a google IV and the stuff leaks in me 24 hours a day. Can you say 'information overload'? :-)
I follow your comments feed and have seen those misguided people. I hope they find their way eventually.
As for my searches, I google. And google and google. Constantly. I use the google search bar in my Firefox browser at least a handful of times per day.
I have a tendency to use Yahoo! most of the time -- I think it's my little way of rebelling. I use Google if I'm on my phone (because it's an Android, so I guess I'm not that much of a rebel).
To quote The Refreshments, "Everybody knows that the world is full of stupid people."
Google for me.
What an awesome blog you have. I just found you today actually. I am a grandma so I appreciate what I have read so far and look forward to reading more. We are also raising 2 of our grandchildren so I still have a foot in the "Mommy" world. I use google for search and I don't really know how to find how people find my blog. I'll be back!
This cracked me up. I must admit, usually I'm just not that interested in my Google Analytics, but now I'm going to go look at 'em.
I'm a Google searcher. Occasionally I use Bing.
I've seen similarly weird search strings on my site. Your bit about the "craw cookie monster" reminded me of one of my daughter's playmates who constantly asked his mom for "cookie pie." We never did figure out what he wanted. It wasn't vanilla pudding or moon pies or any of the other possibilities that might come to mind.