I was shocked yesterday to find out that on a google search for "Luke", my weblog comes up as #5, beating Skywalker, Perry, the Apostle, Duke and Cool Hand. My first reaction was that someone at Google must have screwed something up, but then it dawned on me that the reason for this is that webloggers are not only link-crazy, they also typically link on a first-name-only basis, which Google obviously picks up on.
I decided to test this hypothesis on some popular weblogs and found the following results:
Mark Pilgrim | #1 |
Sam Ruby | #2 |
Dave Winer | #1 |
Doc Searls | #3 |
Chris Pirillo & Sells | #1 & #7 |
Adam Curry | #5 |
Robert Scoble | #18 (but of course most everyone calls him Scoble) |
Phil Ringnalda | #1 |
Russell Beattie | #3 |
Brent Simmons | #3 |
Greg Reinacker | #8 |
Looks like Google works pretty well as a popularity index for weblogs...
Nice to see that Google doesn't hate me after all. For most of the most recent update, google-dance.com has been showing me well down (9-11) on most datacenters, though usually on top of at least one at any time. Coming at the same time that everyone was saying "Google is God" from that NYT article, I wasn't too happy to see that God didn't like me anymore.
Vaguely along the same lines: I've noticed that most of the searches that people complain about blogs ruining are about as effective as searching for Luke Skywalker or Cool Hand Luke with just "Luke" - seems like the more trillions of words Google indexes, the worse it gets at guessing what you mean by a single word. I'm trying to remember to give it two or three keywords to work with, though I usually don't remember until after my first search gives me random dreck.
Posted by Phil Ringnalda at July 10, 2003 3:07 AMGoogle favors blogs in first name searches
public virtual MemoryStream: Google favors blogs in first name searches SharpReader�������ȿ�����˽ФƤ���Luke Hutteman���Blog�ʤ�Ǥ����� �ɤ����Luke��Google�������ȡ�������������������������Ƥ��ޤ��äƤ��ȤǤӤä��ꤷ�Ƥޤ��� �Ƥ��Ȥ��ͤ�...
first name search
rick - #37 on Google [ reply to Luke's post Google favors blogs in first name searches
About 2 months ago I was the number one "mats" at Google, just after a few websites selling sports mats. Then I started to sink really fast, and I was thinking it was because they started to try to not let bloggers rule the linking world. Now I'm at the very top again, even before the sports mats people. So I think what has happened is that Google has changed its mind about bloggers. Good for me, but I'm not sure about the rest of the world, because blogs do screw things up.
Posted by Mats Henricson at July 10, 2003 1:07 PMGoogle First Name Searches
Luke Huttemann: "I was shocked yesterday to find out that on a google search for "Luke", my weblog comes up...
I have noticed that blogs are starting to show up in the search results much faster than before. Regular sites take sometimes days to weeks to get in, whereas now I have seen blog content appear within about 24 hours.
Something is definetly going on over there.
Posted by Greg at July 10, 2003 9:45 PMInterestingly this wasn't the case a couple of days ago. For some reason I dropped off the rankings altogether, but there were hits from a search on my full name to sites that I no longer have any control over - the only reference was in other people's links. So I guess there's a definite sequence to the indexing too.
(danny #2)
http://www.google.com/search?q=jeremy&sourceid=mozilla-search&start=0&start=0&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8
Kick Ass! #1 again. :-)
Posted by Jeremy Zawodny at July 15, 2003 12:03 AMA search for 'Neil' puts Neil Gaiman on top, but I'm at #13, which isn't bad considering I'm a mere 'C'-list blogger.
Posted by Neil T. at July 15, 2003 7:44 AMNot me! I have to compete with Julia Childs and Julia Roberts among many others. I gave up after 5 google page. Now with my whole name, I own Google! :-)
Posted by julie at July 15, 2003 8:22 AMall the links known by google to your blog: search using this:
link:http://www.hutteman.com/weblog/
apparantly 199 links known :)
Posted by Frans Bouma at July 16, 2003 7:32 AMComplaining About Google Is Ruining Google
If you read weblogs you no doubt have come across the a-listers bitching about how Google is broke because weblogs are oft near the top hits for searches. I don't know about you, but when I'm searching for something on Google, I rarely have to go past ...
Number one
I was #5 last month, but as of today I rule the Google universe! Not that I expect anyone to search for my weblog using my first name, but it's still pretty cool while it lasts......
I think they are working in fixing the problem some how and that is why your not # 1 anymore!
Posted by name at September 3, 2003 1:48 PMname comments on "Google favors blogs in first name searches"
name comments on Google favors blogs in first name searchesI think they are working in fixing the problem some how and that is why your not # 1 anymore! [Recent comments and trackbacks for Luke Hutteman's public virtual MemoryStream] Bon, dommage pour ...
Upcoming world star?
I wasn't as shocked as Luke, mainly
because on a
google search for "Daniel" my weblog comes...