I can think of no good reason for this, other than the fact that I've run a blog for a number of years and that it is hosted with Google themselves. I've done a few things here and there, but nothing to really imprint my (absurdly common) name on the collective consciousness of the world.
search: david charles
Fascinated, I looked on the other big search engines to see if this was indeed a case of Google favouritism. Here are the results:Google (84% share of the search market):
10th result. Bottom of the 1st page.Yahoo (6%):
91st result. Top of the 10th page. That's more like the mediocrity I was expecting!Baidu (Chinese language search engine. 4%):
Nowhere to be found in the first 25 pages, or 250 results. Why not? Have I been censored?Bing (4%):
42nd result. 5th page. Solid mediocrity.Ask (<1%):
9th result. 1st page. Suspiciously similar to the Google results. No complaints.Aol (<1%):
10th result. 1st page. Have you been copying at the back there?O Vanity, you spoil me!
Where it really gets interesting (for me) is when you start throwing in random words. Because I've written quite a lot over the years, on quite a number of diverse subjects, random words send me catapulting up the league table.david charles travel
- #1 and #2 on Google.
- #6 on Yahoo!
david charles supermarket
- #1 - #3 on Google.
- #3 and #4 on Yahoo!
david charles cycling
- #1 - #4 on Google.
- #3, #5 and #7 on Yahoo!
david charles palestine
- #1 - #6 on Google.
- #1 on Yahoo!
david charles hitch hiking
- 7 of the top 8 on Google. Only Larry David at #6 keeps me from a Beatles-esque domination of the charts.
- #1, #2 and #9 on Yahoo!
Now those are not really that random. I have written quite extensively about those topics. You would expect me to score pretty highly on them. But what about these?
david charles lights
- #3 - #5 on Google.
david charles massive
- #2 on Google.
david charles teenager
- #5 on Google.
Yahoo!, however, dismisses my name from it's pages. It does seem to be better at picking up relevance, dare I say it.
And yes, that last one there was a random word from: http://watchout4snakes.com/creativitytools/RandomWord/RandomWordPlus.aspx
You may well be aware of all this, however...
ReplyDeleteAOL is powered by Google
Ask is powered by an unnamed third party (hmmm, I can think of a name beginning with G)
Yahoo was independent but is 'transitioning' to Bing power
Bing is independent.
Google is Google.
And as for Baidu, trying injecting a bit more Chinese into your site?
(and please find away of sorting out the comments not working thing - there are people desperate to comment!)
I know the comments things is a right pain in the arse! I have no idea how to sort it out though. It's a blogger thing, as far as I can tell. Grr.
ReplyDelete...But it seems to be working for me right now. I had my suspicions that Aol and Ask were fairly pointless. Better get some Bing thing into my life.
ReplyDeleteOk, i had a go at this.
ReplyDeleteAccording to various internet sources there are 2 people with my name in the UK (1 of which is me I assume) and according another source there are just 12 in the world. That is not many, that is very uncommon.
However, as I am well aware, one of those 12 just happens to be a Hollywood actor (mainly voices for animated films, as it goes) so he had the search engines sewn up.
I can live with that. So when I had a look a few years ago I was able to comfort myself by appending "Tennis" (as I play a bit and know that is about the only thing that will ever get me published dans le net) to the search term, and BOOM! there I was.
I have just tried again, and guess who did a voice for Bee Movie, playing the part of... "a vain tennis player". Evidently I no longer exist.