Thursday, January 21, 2010

Foiled again by Google

Welcome to the land of niche geek.

I don't care about website hits (currently). Even in my first post I said :
"And if outside people read this and are entertained, so be it. At this point in time my intentions are more selfish: I just want a place I can freely post... Plus, it is not like I have to advertise this website's existence. For now, it will be my little secret.


Beyond the occasional mention in my Facebook status, I have refrained from announcing this blog publicly. Well, I recently checked my stats and was surprised at how many random international visitors I was getting. Most would visit a single page of the site and leave never to return (oh well). It wasn't until I ran a referring report (as in, what website sent them here) that I found out what was going on: Google indexes this blog completely (and all other blogs), and my tastes tend to fall in the niche of the niche. So while a small blog that posts about a popular topic like the Dallas Cowboys may never get a hit from Google due to the over saturation of resources, when I write a post on "1997 Japanese arcade plush chickens", or "stop motion cut-scenes from a cult mid-90's game", or "piano arrangements of Disney and Japanese video game themes" then Google will refer the people who search for those terms here since I am one of the few blogs that mentions them. Granted, that is not a lot of people (hence "niche") but it is enough to surprise me with extra hits each day when I am not even advertising this site's existence.

Oh well, guess you can't hide forever. In conclusion, I am reminded of this comic which explores the exploitation of this trend. Don't worry, I won't ever go that niche.

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