Internet Phenomenon
Recently, I had the normal DiscSpace web server down, and was running a fake server I wrote in Perl for the purposes of an experiment. During this experiment, I noted hits from Xanga (a livejournal for 15-year-old girls who can't type). The request was for one of my old, old wallpapers ("blob balls"). I reactivated the web server, and began to look at my access logs. I thought I was running a small, personal site to hold frequently used data and share photos with my friends. It turns out that DiscSpace is more than that: it is an INTERNET PHENOMENON!
- The thing that tipped me off: Numerous young girls use my wallpapers as gaudy backgrounds for their blogs:
Kimberly,
em-j, and
tennischick333.
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This random Japanese guy links to a Trigun audio clip I have.
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I am the MSN authority on the Enlightenment Era via Philosophomon (philosopher pokemon many of which didn't even live during that era). Photographic evidence.
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Yahoo ranks me higher for "X-Change 3" than the producers of the game! Photographic evidence.
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I'm in the top 10 hits for various forms of the Yahoo search "back to the future sound clips", despite the fact that I have ONE clip, and it sucks. Photographic evidence.
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Similarly, I am the number one source for "Azumanga Daioh audio", despite my 5 sounds (4 of which are the eyecatch).
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I am the #3 Yahoo source for "laughing sound clip". The only clip you'll find, though, is the camera-man in one of my distance-ed classes laughing at the professor for less than a second.
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I'm in the Google top 10 for "johann gambleputty" thanks to JT's team in the Teams Department.
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Those in search of "oh shit sound clip" on Yahoo will hear Greg for their #1 hit.
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Searching for "charles dickens tale of two cities first paragraph" on MSN yields the answer to the Dickens Google Image Puzzle as the #2 hit.
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Prospective residents looking for info about Sullivan Hall at NCSU will learn of that building's independant nation.
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If you were to search using MSN or Yahoo, you'd probably end up at my list of file extensions one way or another. It's just a reformatted mirror from somewhere else, but all manner of bizarre searches were leading there: that page accounted for 377 external hits in the last few months, all from unique searches. [UPDATE: These searches now point to THIS ARTICLE as a hit, too!] Some examples:
What lessons can we learn from this? Only that MSN search sucks a lot. All you need to get linked by them is a giant pile of words...it's pathetic.
UPDATE: It's even worse than I thought...since those dumb searches now point HERE, it means that once you have their engine's respect, you can just add new pages featuring the same search terms to expand your listings!
UPDATE 2: It's even worse than I thought in UPDATE 1! The searches now point to links to the searches themselves as the top hit, since I linked to the searches here! For example, the top result in an MSN search for "solution for error 404 Xlite" is the result page for an MSN search for "solution for error 404 Xlite"!! Madness.
