Comments on: SERPs

By: Cindy

Cindy — Tue, 18 Jul 2006 14:50:00 +0000

Ah, good ole SW Sex. My thesis advisor had to pick that one as the namesake for a class of cataclysmic variables. I then gave him grief when he vetoed my original title of my thesis. He didn’t like “SW Sextanis Stars, Superhumps, and other things that go bump in the night”. I told him I wasn’t the one who chose SW Sex instead of DW Ursa Majoris (DW UMa) as the namesake for the class of stars. And I wasn’t the one who coined the term “superhumps” either (it describes the shape of how the light intensity varies over time for certain cataclysmic variables).

By: Evolving Squid

Evolving Squid — Tue, 18 Jul 2006 13:53:30 +0000

Oh, on the naughty magnetar search, only 2 of the top 10 hits deal with SW Sex (Sextanis). The rest actually have clinical or research discussions about sex somewhere on the page.

By: Evolving Squid

Evolving Squid — Tue, 18 Jul 2006 13:47:05 +0000

Can someone tell me how to find out which Google search keywords bring people to oneâ€™s website?

The answer to that question depends wholly on how your website is run. On my web site ( http://darincowan.typepad.com ), and probably any “hosted” web site – particularly hosted blogs – I can log in to the admin interface and get a “stats” page that shows me “referrer” links. Those links are often google (or other search engine) search hits, so if I click on them it brings me to the exact search page that visitor used to get to my site. So for this site, BA can probably log in to a stats page and get the same kind of info. Hence, if you google this page, you should always use: +”Bad Astronomy” +Plait pineappleor other weird terms to add humour to his otherwise uninteresting administrative duties

If you are running the web site yourself on, say, a Linux box, you’d have to get the referrer information yourself. You can tease it out of logs, etc. if you set the parameters correctly on the web server.

I have no idea how you’d do it if you run IIS. I assume that, like most Microsoft products, extracting useful log information involves a dark ceremony involving naked people, woad, lots of candles, a chicken and a black dagger

By: J. D. Mack

J. D. Mack — Tue, 18 Jul 2006 11:34:44 +0000

Can someone tell me how to find out which Google search keywords bring people to one’s website?

J. D.

By: gopher65

gopher65 — Tue, 18 Jul 2006 00:29:44 +0000

hehe Evolving Squid that is a great game for a bored surfer:).

BTW Phil I like this new layout. The old one (well, the old new one:P) felt a bit weird to me, especially the font.

By: Cindy

Cindy — Mon, 17 Jul 2006 23:25:56 +0000

Evolving Squid,

I bet some of the hits of the magnatars are due to objects in the constellation Sextantis which is shortened to “Sex” when referring to a variable star. For instance, +astronomy+cataclysmic variables+sex brings up 18,900 hits. Of course I knew that there were a few cataclysmic variables in the constellation Sextantis.

By: Evolving Squid

Evolving Squid — Mon, 17 Jul 2006 22:57:21 +0000

There’s a game I like to play called “Stump Google”. To play, you must enter a search with the following parameters:

+a_fruit +a_power_tool +sex

The + is required.

So: +pineapple +chainsaw +sex (this one remarkably returns 28,200 hits)

The winner is the one with the lowest hits, kind of like golf. It’s been startlingly hard to get 0, although I’ve managed it once or twice.

By: cybergoulion

cybergoulion — Mon, 17 Jul 2006 22:44:36 +0000

This is my first comment although I read your blog for about 6 months or so. I for one landed here looking for the moon hoax after I found a “documentary” about it. Well you ought to be proud, after I read your debunking my (very few) doubts vanished, and well, I’m still here!

By: kingnor

kingnor — Mon, 17 Jul 2006 20:14:35 +0000

oh cheer up phil. You know if someone looks for the moon hoax and lands here, that a small thing has gone right in the world.

be proud!

By: Blake Stacey

Blake Stacey — Mon, 17 Jul 2006 20:11:25 +0000

Oops. My previous post was intended to read as follows: You fell from the first page to the third on the Ann Coulter search. However, an old entry of yours is still the second hit when I search for my own name plus the word "sex". All your commenters will rejoice, Professor BA, when that "Preview" button arrives. . . (-:

By: Blake Stacey

Blake Stacey — Mon, 17 Jul 2006 20:10:06 +0000

You fell from the first page to the third on the Ann Coulter search. However, is still the second hit when I search for my own name plus the word "sex".

By: Roy Batty

Roy Batty — Mon, 17 Jul 2006 20:09:35 +0000

Now, with that post, you will no doubt get a few people looking for State Earnings Related Pensions: http://www.thepensionservice.gov.uk/serps/
And they will be disappointed… or maybe not!