Hmm… it’s been 3 months since I last did this. Time for another look at the incoming queries log.
Homework questions
The internet may well know everything, but I don’t think you’re going to get very far writing queries like:
what is a summary– top query in September and October!write summary about easy lifewhat is an opportunitytell me summary in musicsummary of crossing the rubicona sentence that has the words flesh and blood in itinterpretation of the poem-the truth the dead knowsummary of poem late tutorialsynopsis of photographic still lifesummary of the book on my honor of every chapter
Like Eliza before it, the Google search form has passed the Turing Test as administered by gullible people. I offer at least one more piece of evidence: how do you unwind– what kind of answer do you think the questioner was asking for? Tips on how to unwind, or an answer from the search engine itself “Sometimes, we like to kick back and index a couple of good books and a coffee shop website or two.”
One lesson that you could draw from this would be to write FAQ lists, because that’s how people search. Another lesson is that the people who Google homework questions will to get found out if they consider this site to be authoritative.
A few answers
- What is a summary?
- A summary is generally a short description of something else, covering the main points and arguments.
- Write summary about easy life
- I believe ‘easy life’ was a catchphrase in The Fast Show
- What is an opportunity?
- According to Ambrose Bierce, an opportunity is ‘a favorable occasion for grasping a disappointment’.
- Tell me summary in music
- If you think I’m going to sing one of the Perl 6 Summaries, you have another think coming.
- Summary of crossing the rubicon
- Crossing the rubicon is what happens during the game of piquet when your total score for the rubber exceeds 100 points. If you reach the end of the rubber and you haven’t crossed the rubicon, and you’ve lost, your opponent adds your score to his and you then owe him the combined total times the basic stake. Unless you’ve done really badly, this is substantially worse than the usual system of working out the required payment, which involves finding the difference between the scores and adding 100.
- A sentence that has the words flesh and blood in it
- This is a sentence that has the worlds flesh and blood in it.
Queries from outer space
There’s a class of queries that leave me scratching my head and wondering how they ended up pointing at this site and/or what on earth the querent was hoping to find.
how can affect the art in hotel and restaurant managementfolktales/ satan/ penisshiny latex sisternexearchperks jackrumfast car with naked girlshis cockshag tree
Shag tree? Perhaps some of these are faked up search terms intended to induce me to try the search myself and be sucked into a whirling vortex of spam. Which is not an image I want to contemplate. Someone else (presumably) searched for tree shag. Maybe I’m an authority on the subject without knowing it.
In the interests of curiosity, I tried some of these searches. On the second page of results for ‘shiny latex sister’, I found this extract:
Just a Summary
But that’s not what’s shiny. What’s shiny is that I’ve just installed the latest version of auctex for Emacs and added its sister package, preview-latex and …
Someone passed over a page about Britney Spears, incest and, um, canine love to visit my site. I feel blessed.
Meanwhile, folktales/ satan/ penis finds this site as the fourth most relevant hit – that’ll teach me to quote Bill Hicks.
If you Google for fast car with naked girls you will, eventually, find last year’s article about Women in Open Source. If you’re so desperate to find fast cars with naked girls that you’re checking out the fifth page of hits, then this article may come as a disappointment to you. You should read it though.
Accidental puns
Or, these aren’t the pages you were looking for.
when does a wall need piersfishing from pierscertification of piersinstability in piersreinforcing piers in a house
I know I’m big, but I wouldn’t recommend anyone try fishing from me.
The rest…
Mostly, it looks like the top 10 searches are pretty sensible. With the exception of the ever popular what is a summary and a summary searches, I can tell that what they’re linking to is properly relevant to the search. There’s one other exception though, the top search in August was for glamour. Quite what that was about I don’t know.
