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Odd Search Terms That Found My Blog | Massey on Blogging

Posted in On Blogging, tagged , , , , on February 27, 2013 | 9 Comments »

croquet search termsAs bloggers, we’re all used to seeing odd keyword searches earning visits to our sites.

Since it happens that my blog’s navigation and content give particular weight to the word “nude” … well, I get some particularly odd search terms generating page views.

I know you have your favorite search terms from your sites. Here are my favorites from mine:

nudist novels goddess
This search phrase is actually quite relevant to my self-published eBook novel, Queen of the Nude. (Did I mention this novel is really good? Did I mention the whole point of this blog is to persuade you to read it? Did I mention I wrote I novel? I did? Okay good.)

nudity in jane austen’s persuasion
This search phrase may be the very apex of wishful thinking.

tofurkey apocalypse
Excellent. A totally random search term triggered by a totally random Thanksgiving short story.

very old friends naked
You’ve come to the wrong place, bub. Instead, invite them to your house. Get them very drunk. Turn the thermostat to 95 degrees. And wait.

pictures of satan fainting
This was triggered by a particularly delicious/despicable pun post titled “Fainting at the Sight of Satan”.  Go on. Click the link. You know you want to.

joe gillis gigolo
Joe Gillis is the main character in Billy Wilder’s Sunset Boulevard. While he exhibits some gigolo-like behavior, I believe he is emphatically not a gigolo.

big breasted woman at baseball games
This one is my fault because I wrote a poem titled “A Mystery of Life Propounded …” which discusses the aforementioned women (in a purely metaphysical sense).

was it really emma bovary’s fault
No, not really.  I blame French society and Flaubert more.

holy moses sex
I can’t imagine what the person was thinking when he (she?) typed in those words.  Probably has something to do with 50 Shades of Grey, however.

erotic nude croquet
Okay, this one I can imagine.  A mid-summer’s garden party in England.  Late afternoon. The golden honey light is just still slanting over the tall hedges that crowd the long narrow garden behind the country house. Strawberries and cream in the bowls.  Strawberries and cream on the croquet lawn. The buxom glory of Britannia.  Not the callow freshness of spring’s first blossom, but the fullness and ripeness of summer fruit. Wide-brimmed straw hats. The gentle, somnolent “tock” of the croquet balls and the murmurs of “well played, well played.”  Later, a deep feather bed and bright moonlight and a breeze, warm and languid, drifting through the open window. Bird song. The chime of a lesser river in the distance. Keats’ poetry. The feeling that if there is only this night, this night and nothing more, all of life is worth it still. And then – uh oh, here comes my wife. Shsssh!

Bonus! A couple of odd search terms from webmaster tools for which my blog ranked as an impression, but thankfully didn’t earn a click:

hilary mantel nude
Mantel is a good writer and deserves her Bookers … but why?

ayn rand nude
Probably the most disturbing term I’ve seen.  Worse, webmaster tools tells me that my average search position on this phrase is 36, which means there are at least 35 other sites that also have keywords related to “ayn rand nude”. You won’t find nude pictures of Ayn Rand on my site. You will find her talking about fantasy football, however.

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Does Anyone Else Not Like the New “Reader” Format on WordPress?

Posted in On Blogging, tagged , , , on January 8, 2013 | 37 Comments »

WordPress Reader FormatI really like WordPress. It’s a great blogging platform and a great community, and I feel ungrateful saying this. But I’m going to say it.  I don’t like the new Reader layout.

The problem for me is that the listings are too big. A single post takes up nearly the full screen on my devices and a post with sample images can take up two plus screens.

This is great for readability, but I follow a lot of people, and all the scrolling is making it harder for me to browse the headlines and look for the names of bloggers I particularly like. I feel I am going to miss some posts I really want to read.

Anyhow, I’d be happy to hear what other folks think. And if most people like the new layout, I’ll keep quiet and adapt.

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“The bloggers who Like everything” | Massey on Blogging

Posted in On Blogging, tagged , on October 19, 2012 | 17 Comments »

Like Buttons in WordPressAs a WordPress blogger, I’m used to seeing other WordPress bloggers Liking the same posts I do.

This is natural. There are people who share my tastes, so I’m not surprised to see familiar Gravatar images at the bottom of posts I read.

But there are a couple folks who, it seems, I always see at the bottom of posts. And they always seem to have been there first. Even when the post is brand new. And I find this particular.

Particular enough that I occasionally play the game of going to a topic and checking each post for Likes in succession. And sometimes I find that the same person has Liked every single post in a consecutive series of 15 to 20.

This makes me think a number of different thoughts:

1. Wow, this person sure does read a lot.
2. Wow, this person sure does read fast.
3. Wow, this person sure does like every post on this topic.
4. Wow, this person sure does find something to like in truly bad posts. He or she has a big generous soul.
5. Wow, this m&%#*@f$<!€r just goes down the list of posts and clicks every Like button.

Now, let me be clear. I don’t know these folks. I don’t know their thoughts, I don’t know their judgments, I don’t know the reasons for their actions, and I certainly don’t know their motivations. In short, I don’t have any proof. I may be wrong. All I have is a suspicion.

But when I see that someone has Liked twenty consecutive posts, regardless of topic or quality, and I see they’ve done this numerous times over a period of weeks, then I pull out my copy of “Occam’s Razor for Dummies” (University of Oxford Press, 1321).

Occam’s razor says when you have several competing explanations for an event, the simplest should be preferred. Then I sprinkle in a healthy dose of sad but justifiable cynicism and conclude that the m&%#*@f$<!€r just went down the list of posts and clicked every Like button.

Now that I’ve thrown out this suspicion, let me also say I get why someone might do this (if they have) and that I have a certain amount of sympathy for it.

We work hard on our blogs to make them good. We believe they are good after that work. We believe they deserve to be read and people will enjoy reading them.

We also know Liking someone’s post is a way to drive readers to our blogs. I look at the blogs of people who have Liked one of my posts and I look at the blogs of people who Like the posts I like. I Like posts. If I Like a lot of posts, I can potentially get a lot of traffic.

But I’m aware that Liking a post could benefit me. Sometimes, the choice is easy. Something I really like is easy to Like. Something I don’t like is easy to ignore. But those posts in the middle, I find my hand hesitating over my mouse and my conscience twitching.

Am I Liking the post because I like it? Or am I Liking the post because I figure, oh what the hell, just promote yourself Pete?

I’m not saying I always get it right. Sometimes I’m sure I don’t. But I think a Like also has to mean something.  Because otherwise, it’s just a lie and a way to use a person, and there are folks in the world who lie and use people, then die rich and happy, but there are others who don’t.

You can do good work and fail, and you can do bad work and make it succeed. But the success of good work is secure. Good work can’t be taken away from you. Good work will always speak well for you, even if it only whispers.

So I will only Like what I like. And hope God helps me keep it that way. But I’m not making promises.

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8 Superb Evil Spam Bot Comments from My Blog

Posted in Jokes & Puns, On Blogging, tagged , , , , , on September 24, 2012 | 3 Comments »

Not evil spam bot spam just regular hot & spicy spamMost bloggers are familiar with the evil spam bots that prowl the internet and leave spam comments on their sites.

One purpose of these evil bots is to build links back to the websites of the diabolical overlords controlling them because links help improve a site’s search result position in Google – or at least they did until Google’s recent Penguin update began punishing websites with lots of spammy links.

Penguin doesn’t seem to have slowed down the number of evil bots visiting my site and leaving spam comments yet, however. So every day, Akismet catches them and every day, I delete them.

This doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy the evil spam bot comments.

Many of the spam bots seem to have been developed by programmers who write imperfect English or who perhaps suffer from some kind of language processing disorder. Which create delightful sentences.

Here are some of my favorites. This one is either an unsuccessful attempt to write code that tailors the comment to the material on the blog post. Or it’s the work of a surrealist genius:

Pinnock is repulsed by the Word of God and the in-browser online version of Typer Shark, the player controls a diver on his or her toes. There is also a huge selection of lawn mowers. This site does not have many options for about the site. And ensure he’s around for now.

This spam bot seems confused, but confused in a vaguely poetical sort of way:

You are my breathing in, I have few web logs and infrequently run out from post . “Never mistake motion for action.” by Ernest Hemingway.

I especially like this one:

I have study not one particular write-up on your weblog. You are a massive lad.

It’s true my lad is massive. But how can you tell that from my blog? I got this one soon after:

Buy Viagra online from an official certified pharmacy, OVERNIGHT Shipping, Exclusive & competitive discount prices, express shipping & discrete packaging.

Appreciate the offer. My massive lad is doing quite well without any pharmaceutical help, however. On to the next:

There’s noticeably a bundle to learn about this. I assume you made certain good points in options also.

The evil spam bot above seems to admit it hasn’t read the post. The honesty is refreshing. The honesty of this one is less so:

Thank you, I’ve just been looking for information about this topic for a while and yours is the greatest I’ve discovered till now. But, what in regards to the conclusion? Are you sure in regards to the supply? What i don’t understood is actually how you are no longer actually much more smartly-appreciated than you might be right now. You’re very intelligent.

Thank you. That’s more than I can say for you, oh evil spam bot.  Here’s another:

Hi there! This is kind of off topic but I need some guidance from an established blog. Is it hard to set up your own blog? I’m not very techincal [sic] but I can figure things out pretty fast. I’m thinking about setting up my own but I’m not sure where to start. Do you have any tips or suggestions? Many thanks

That one is pretty clever because you might mistake if for an actual person leaving an actual comment if there were any actual people who were named “buy discount cigarettes online” by their parents.  The last one:

Hello Web Admin, I noticed that your On-Page SEO is is missing a few factors, for one you do not use all three H tags in your post, also I notice that you are not using bold or italics properly in your SEO optimization. On-Page SEO means more now than ever since the new Google update: Panda. No longer are backlinks and simply pinging or sending out a RSS feed the key to getting Google PageRank or Alexa Rankings, You now NEED On-Page SEO. So what is good On-Page SEO? First your keyword must appear in the title.Then it must appear in the URL.You have to optimize your keyword and make sure that it has a nice keyword density of 3-5% in your article with relevant LSI (Latent Semantic Indexing). Then you should spread all H1,H2,H3 tags in your article.Your Keyword should appear in your first paragraph and in the last sentence of the page. You should have relevant usage of Bold and italics of your keyword.There should be one internal link to a page on your blog and you should have one image with an alt tag that has your keyword….wait there’s even more Now what if i told you there was a simple WordPress plugin that does all the On-Page SEO, and automatically for you? That’s right AUTOMATICALLY, just watch this 4minute video for more information at

I get this one pretty often and the interesting thing about it is that the advice largely conforms to the on-page SEO recommendations you find on sites like Search Engine Land and SEOMoz. I tend to pay less attention to keyword density in my posts than some experts recommend because it clogs up my prose style, and I only use H headers, bolding, and italics when I think they make sense to a human reader.

Another interesting thing about this comment is that it says Google’s “Panda” update has made back links less effective for SEO. Generally, the “Penguin” update is considered to have punished spammy backlinks while “Panda” punished pages with thin content but a lot of on-page SEO – ie, exactly what this comment addresses.

Whether this is an example of an evil spam bot getting all “Manchurian Candidate” on our asses … a simple mistake … or a joke, I can’t tell.

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Bing versus Google for Bloggers | The “Bing It On” Challenge

Posted in On Blogging, tagged , , , on September 10, 2012 | 1 Comment »

Screenshot of the "Bing It On" ChallengeMicrosoft’s Bing search engine has launched a new promotion called “Bing It On” which allows you to review side-by-side unlabeled search results from the two engines, and pick a winner for each. The page is here.

For the record, I work for neither Google or Microsoft.  I don’t have a strong preference for one search engine over the other, although Google often seems to index more pages of my blog than Bing.  And I recognize this challenge is a form of advertising from Microsoft.

That said, when I took the challenge for keywords relevant to my blog, Bing told me Google won.

The challenge also made me consider that a lot of WordPress bloggers don’t think about search engines when they title their posts.

For example, since I write a lot of book reviews, I like to put the title of the book, the full name of the author, and the word “review” in the title of the post. This helps me pick up page visits from searches like “emma by jane austen”.

I think this PDF from Google is a decent introduction to the subject, for those interested in learning more.

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How NOT to Write a Book Review | On Blogging

Posted in On Blogging, On Writing, tagged , , , , , , on July 27, 2012 | 15 Comments »

Lunatic blogger on how not to review books - interior portraitBefore I offer my (probably offensive) book review advice, I would like to make two important qualifications.

First, if you are writing for family, friends, co-workers, and acquaintances – ignore this advice. It doesn’t apply to you.

Second and similarly, if your subject is yourself, and writing about a book is simply an opportunity to enrich your engaging self-portrait – ignore this advice. It doesn’t apply to you, either.

However, if your subject is the book and you are writing for the general public, then some of the points in this lunatic rant could possibly apply to you (although I sincerely hope they don’t).

Now, may all the saints in heaven forgive me. Here goes:

  • Don’t tell us how much you love reading books. We assume you do or you wouldn’t read them.
  • Don’t tell us how much you hate reading books. We’ll wonder why you read them.
  • Don’t write a blog post about how you have nothing to say about the book. If you nothing to say — say nothing.
  • Don’t write a post about how you didn’t understand the book. See above.
  • Don’t write a post about how you found the book boring because you didn’t understand it. See above.
  • Please don’t tell us how the book got you through a difficult time in your life. We’ll feel like miserable, pathetic bastards for hating it.
  • Don’t tell us you liked a book without telling us why. Your reasons are what make your opinions interesting.
  • Don’t tell us you disliked a book without telling us why. Your reasons are what make your opinions interesting.
  • Don’t apologize for your opinions. They are what make you you.
  • Don’t let some preening pin-dick with a real or fictitious PhD tell you your opinions are wrong.
  • Particularly, don’t let some preening pin-dick PhD tell you you missed the “irony” of the book or have been tricked by its “indeterminacy” or its “unreliable narrator”. Most of the time, the f**ker is bluffing. Put him to the test. Ask him to explain. If he can’t, you win. If he can, you learn something.
  • Don’t let someone tell you what is or isn’t literature. Any person more interested in categories than individual works is a philistine.
  • Don’t write from apathy. Intellect without passion is a long, slow, grey death.
  • Don’t write from disdain or despair. Love is what fixes our souls in the mind of God.
  • Don’t begin any thought, sentence, or paragraph with the words, “I’m not sure this is relevant.” If it’s not relevant, cut it.
  • For Christ’ sake, don’t begin or end a review with the words, “I’m not sure this post is worth reading.” If the post isn’t worth reading — don’t post it.
  • Don’t tell us why you bought the book, where you bought the book, what else you were doing or who you were with when you bought the book, how much you like the store where you bought the book or how much you like the person you were with when you bought it, what you were wearing while reading the book, or what else was going on in your life while you were reading it. Don’t tell us where you read the book. Don’t describe your favorite reading nook or reading chair. Don’t post pictures of your favorite reading nook or reading chair. Don’t tell us what you like to eat or drink while reading books. For Christ’ sake, don’t post pictures of what you were eating or drinking while reading the book. Don’t tell us the book made you want to have sex. Don’t tell us the book made you not want to have sex. We don’t want to know. Don’t tell us about your lack of progress writing your novel. Don’t tell us about your garden, your pets, your motorcycle, your band, your new yoga pose, your favorite restaurant, your favorite club, your favorite gym, your classes, your job, your boyfriend, your girlfriend, your wedding plans, your children, your parents, your shoes, or your Glock Gen 4. Don’t tell us about the fabulous pancakes you cooked on Sunday morning before you began reading the book. We don’t know you. We don’t care.

Phew. I feel much better now. Thank you for your forbearance.

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