Rebecca Henderson

People search for strange things on the internet. This can be proven by looking at the stats page on my blog’s dashboard. You can’t do that, by the way. Only I can. But trust me, it can be proven.

I had blogged for two years before I knew that I could see which keywords people are searching for when they end up on my website — my previous blog platform didn’t have this function, which is unfortunate, because it’s quite an entertaining function. When I first figured out about search engine terms on my site, I posted about some of the odd keywords and phrases I’ve seen. That blog entry from June 2010 is worth going back to read. “Peed her pants” — seriously?

Since I first started tracking my blog stats, I have also added a plugin to display the titles of my most popular posts, in terms of the number of clicks the posts have received. Look to the left to see the current top 5.

It will take quite some time for “Thoughts on Love Tells the Story” to be displaced from its spot, thanks to a certain recording artist who tweeted the link on his Twitter account. Really, I mean it, thanks.

The distant but firm second place post is “Marfa.” I’m fairly confident this one will also be hard pressed to lose its spot because it regularly gets clicks from various search engine keywords: Marfa, Donald Judd, aluminum boxes, Chinati. Who knew this artist’s haven was so popular? I was half joking in that blog entry when I wrote, “I really hate saying negative things on my blog, especially since there’s the possibility that my page will show up in someone’s Google search.” Oh man, that one has come back to haunt me, over and over.

Other posts from my West Texas road trip (“The West Texas Idea” and “Big Bend, Part 1“) fluctuate in their popularity, as do posts from Alaska (“Acclimated” and “In the Kobuk Valley, Part 2“). Soon they will be ousted by a much older post, though — “Burmese Days: Shan Noodles.”

People are seriously into Shan noodles, and they are on the hunt for a recipe. I also get hits from searches for Chaung Tha beach and just Burma in general, but man, I’m telling you, the demand for Shan noodle recipes is on the rise. It’s crazy — but understandable, because they really are the best noodles in the world. (Hmmm…I suddenly feel the need to make Shan noodles for dinner later this week.)

Another odd one that had a good run a few weeks back is “stretched ear lobes” or “stretched earring holes.” For about a week straight, I was getting multiple searches a day for this one, taking readers to another oldy-but-goody post from my blogging days in China.

Every once in a while, someone will accidentally end up at my website by doing a search for, of all the insane ideas, my name.