Okay, it’s been a month since I posted that huge tag-fest to see who might search-engine their way here, and this seems as good a time as any to offer an update.
To start with, some of the most popular searches on the internet drew no traffic here at all. I bet millions of people searched for things like ‘United States of America’ or ‘new Pope’ during the past month, but none ended up here. Why? Because thousands of sites were always going to outdo me in the rankings. No one ended up here looking to treat their goldfish either.
Several people came looking for the Duchess of Cambridge, but none for Kate Middleton. My guess is everyone’s searching for Kate and not so many searching for the Duchess. Again it might be a question of rankings.
I can tell you that someone out there is interested in Coldplay naked. I don’t know how far and wide a person needs to search for that, and my apologies for getting that person’s hopes up.
Top among the rankings of searches that found their way here were, as usual, Nick Earls, followed by his ever-present shadow Nick Earles and then the clear winner in this game of Google tag … drum roll please … ‘Mila Kunis naked’. Yes, despite this being a hot search term with serious site competition out there, ‘Mila Kunis naked’ was my #3 search term for the month. I’ve tried the search myself – as part of this experiment, naturally – and haven’t found my way back here, so people must be prepared to wade through dozens of sites (mostly, from the look of it, featuring doctored nude selfies with Mila Kunis’s head photoshopped on top) in order to seek that elusive goal.
But here’s something I hadn’t anticipated: an explosion in the number of ‘unknown search terms’. Most months there’s a handful of those, but this month they came in a clear #1 ahead of ‘Nick Earls’. From what WordPress tells me, ‘unknown search term’ is a result that comes up when someone’s using a search engine or search-engine feature that keeps their search private.
I’m not the only one now thinking that there were a lot more sneaky porn searches finding their way here, am I? No one searches for goldfish constipation advice secretly. In the interests of science, I’m sure we all wish those searchers had been more open about their goals.
I can only speculate about potential biases in the searches run by those slightly more tech-savvy people. Maybe they’re big Mila Kunis fans too. Or maybe not. As a consequence of just one tag, this site now ranks #4 on Google for ‘Kevin Rudd Naked’, but no one (openly) came here looking for it. There were well over 100 who made their way here under the cover of ‘unknown search terms’ though. Hmmm. Perhaps the member for Griffith is more popular than Mila Kunis after all (naked).
Nick Earls 
Very interesting indeed. However, I really wish you hadn’t put the image of KRudd naked into my head.
how fascinating! I wonder if there were any interesting combinations, e.g. Coldplay + goldfish, or Mila Kunis + KRudd…
After catching up on the last post and now reading this one, I somehow feel like nakedness is on the table. Not that I was looking for it. No, no, no. It just wouldn’t go with those …pumpkins?
Always alert to mentions of you on this side of the ditch, I noticed last month that a columnist in our newspaper wrote about visiting a Second Treasures store and listed his purchases, “but yes, I think I will buy that Nick Earls novel with the slight foxing”.You’re being salvaged over here. Even if slightly foxed…
It’s only fitting that my novels should be slightly foxed, in line with their creator. One of many reasons, but only one, that this site is much more likely to continue to feature images of pumpkins rather than my undressed self.