It’s that time of year again…
For boring, technical reasons, I only have website search terms for the last three months. However, here’s what my statistics program says people are using to find this site:
im dreaming of a white christmas
I’m not! That’s why I moved to Heat and Humidity Central!
exhibitionist blog (and similar terms, like exhibitionist grandmothers)
I know what entry generated this search term, and I am pretty sure there are a lot of disappointed nude browsers out there.
halt near x
Amazingly, if you search for the name of my blog, you will find my blog. How cool are search engines these days?!
horse show ribbon quilts and show ribbon quilts (and other variations)
A perennial favorite.
speakcode
I suspect that if I knew what that meant, I’d probably have to kill someone.
buying a green horse
Hey - after all my agonizing about it, I went and bought a green horse! I think that disqualifies me from giving anyone else advice on the subject.
some disturbingly accurate stalkerish terms
You’re weird and creepy. Go away.
song lyrics let me taste your applesauce
You should meet up with my stalker searchers. I think you’d get along great.
easier than making a quilt
I want to know the thought process there. How do you decide you are interested in activities that are easier than making a quilt vs. activities that are, say, easier than making ice cream sundaes? Or making jet planes? Or making the bed?
aphorisms about the past
I suspect this was not the blog you were looking for.
Actually, I suspect this was not the blog anyone was looking for, since (aside from the weird stalker search terms), non-horse-related search terms far outnumber horse-related search terms. Or else I have been more off-topic than usual lately.
Other random search terms people have been using:
- the importance for clarification and misunderstanding
- clarification blog
- molasses covered alfalfa called
- im not normally a
- clarification importance
Someone is obviously searching for clarification. And they keep ending up here. I’m not sure if I should laugh or cry.
And, of course, New Year’s Resolutions are coming up. I’m going to circumvent that and just say two things:
- This year I almost met a resolution from a couple years ago, when I said I wanted to go to a horse auction. I did go to the auction, but the tack portion went on for so long, and was so boring, that we left before the horses were run through. Thus, I never actually met that resolution. Given how very far behind I am already, it seems kind of pointless to make new resolutions.
- I was chastised at my family holiday party for not checking in on the weight loss competition this winter, and then I was browbeat into agreeing to participate in the January - Easter competition. I’m not sure if that qualifies as a resolution or not, since it’s participate or be cast out of the family, but that’s all I’ve got this year. I will lose 15 pounds by Easter. Or… else. I don’t know what follows the “else.” I’m not sure I want to know.
Not Really Awarding the Web
This morning, I opened an email that had way too many exclamation marks for before-noon reading:
Congratulations! Emma Lee here, and your blog, Halt Near, has received our
2010 Top 40 Horses Blogs award!
I am sure some of my readers have received this email as well, because I recognized some of your blogs in the list of the Top 40.
Also in the Top 40: at least three blogs that haven’t posted a thing in 2010. Not in the Top 40: awesome blogs like Behind the Bit and The Literary Horse. [This was true when I viewed the page, at least.]
Even if they hadn’t managed to get my blog’s name wrong in both the email and on their Top 40 list, the above issues would have been enough to flag the entire situation as something less than legitimate.
But wait! There’s more!
Apparently, awards are given out based on reader nominations. Again, I point to the differences between my little corner of egoism, with my twelve dearly loved but, still, not numerous, readers, and Behind the Bit, who recently logged 1,000 readers.
I’m not buying rotten fish from Denmark, thanks.
A little more investigation pulled up a widely-reposted blog about why Awarding the Web is a scam. The author’s main contention is with the requirement that you post the award’s linked badge “or else.” I agree with him—conditional awards suck and are not really awards at all. You can find a full version of his post here.
But I’d like to add something else.
Links are the crack cocaine of the web. They are still a very influential factor in determining search engine rankings and, therefor, highly coveted by everyone. However, search engines have become more discriminatory in how they handle links, due to massive link farming abuse. Lots of incoming links are valuable. Outgoing links not so much.
So let’s say I accept this supposed award and put it on my site. Where will it link to? The Awarding the Web site (which actually exists)? Nope. Onlineschools.org.
Mmm-kay. Go to onlineschools.org. Go all through that site. Find the page(s) that link this wonderful, pretigious award list, and all the other wonderful, prestigious awards being given out by Awarding the Web.
I’ll wait.
...
No? Yeah, there are no links from the hosting site at all. You have to know the blog award page exists to find it. So then I went looking for other blog categories. But they are the same—you have to know they exist to find them. There’s certainly no list of the varied awards being given out, not even on the Awarding the Web site itself.
Think about it.
Awarding the Web is so gosh-darn-proud of blogs and so gee-golly eager to recognize great bloggers that they do. not. provide. any. way. to. find. their. awards.
And why are they hosting their award pages on some unrelated “online schools” website, anyway? According to the Disclaimer page at awardingtheweb.com:
We here at Awarding The Web work hard to find the best blogs, and to distribute our awards to those we find with the help of sponsor sites. Our affiliation with any of our sponsor sites are only in this regard. We are not employed by any of our sponsor sites, nor do we receive any financial payments from them.
If that’s true, the people behind Awarding the Web are even bigger suckers than the ones who think this is a legitimate award.
Here’s what the sponsor sites get: hundreds (at least) of inbound links to their domains.
Here’s what it costs the sponsor sites: [long pause]
Bandwith? Meh. Something like this is not going to generate bandwidth worth talking about.
If you actually find one of the so-called award pages, take the time to notice the links. Or lack of links. The award pages list the URLs but don’t hyperlink them. What’s more, the URLs are images, so you can’t even copy/paste them. Not only are they making it hard as hell for visitors to go view the blogs, they have set the page up so that it absolutely denies the blogs any benefit from being referenced on the host site.
Awesome. So I can link to a completely irrelevant site and increase their page ranking, and they will make it hard as hell for people to visit my site while denying me any page ranking at all. That’s my reward? Let me get right on it.
[It occurs to me, belatedly, that TLH and BTB may already have been offered and declined this less than amazing opportunity, which is why they are not on the list. If so, good for them. Everyone else should decline as well—whatever the intentions of the creators of this “award” were, the fact is that the so-called awards are structured in such a way that your blogs are being used to promote the “sponsor” sites in the search engines. I hate when people abuse bloggers like this. Don’t fall for it.]
I’m waiting for a Bloggie, personally
I received an award from “Awarding the Web.”
I will post more when I can stop laughing.
It may be a while.
On the plus side, the item is exactly as described. Exactly.
On my local Craig’s List, there is an ad for a bumper pull trailer that proudly describes the trailer as: “2 - 3500lbs axles, Bulldog hitch, pulls good, tires and floor is in fair condition.”
Axles, hitch, tires, floor—what more could you want?
Walls and roof are not included, evidently (but hey—the item is exactly as described!)—
Thank you, Department of Redundancies Department
From a website explaining various types of knee injuries:
The reason runners develop runner’s knee is because of the nature of running.
Awesome.
I never would have guessed that running might cause people who run (as opposed to people who play the trombone) to get a condition called runner’s knee. Next they are going to say Tennis Elbow often occurs in people who play tennis.