Grubbing Through the Referrals on Site Meter

Occasionally, when my mind is on auto pilot and refuses to let me steer, I pass the time rummaging through our site meter, looking at the World Map feature and clucking over all those Europeans who are staying up so late. Or perhaps I start looking at the Referrals to see the variety of Google searches that land people on our blog.

With some of these search strings below, it’s obvious how people arrived at our site. Others are mysterious… what have I ever written about “Filipina domination”? And why would anyone want to know how old Anne Frank was when Hitler started slaughtering Jews? We seem to be driven to discover the oddest things.

For those of you who remember the “Bill Gates is a Muslim” April Fool's joke post (the Baron can be wickedly evil sometimes): I'll let you know there was only one of them today. Way back when, variations on that search used to make up about twenty-five per cent of the Google-driven clicks on Gates of Vienna, most of them from Middle Eastern ISPs. I don't think April 1st is a major joke day in Islam. Besides, the need to believe something often trumps reason.

These days, however, the searches are more varied…and perhaps even stranger. Who is it, do you think, that fears Germany is planning to take over Europe using the EU as a cover? Well, maybe it isn’t a fear, maybe it’s a hope? I did read somewhere today that twenty percent of Germans want the Berlin Wall put back up.

And I found out there are far more saints’ feast days on May 15th than just Dymphna and old Gerebemus.

For those of you with blogs and site meters, I suggest a journey through the bowels and steam tunnels of your referrals. As we say in Virginia, it’s a right strange trip.

Here are the search strings I found on ours in about fifteen minutes:
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• WILL GERMANY CONTROL ALL OF EUROPE THRU THE EU
  
• where angels fear to tread
  
• map of tampa jet fuel pipeline
  
• muslim toilet habits
  
• big pig gig Vienna Ga.
  
• saint for May 15th
  
• slogan for policeman
  
• american civil war xenophobia
  
• how old was Anne Frank when Adolf Hitler started slaughtering jews?
  
• glamour girls and old men
  
• filipina domination

The only one in this list that bothers me is the search for a map of the Tampa jet fuel pipeline. Sure wish I knew what that dude had in mind.