A view from the web!

16 years ago

Has this ever happened to any of you?

Who ever woulda thunk that the World Wide Web could make some VERY ordinary pictures VERY popular! When I was just looking up pictures to link on the Winter Sowing thread I was clicking back and forth on my pics to find the views I wanted, and as I was going by one picture I thought I saw that it said there had been 800-and-some views! Assumed I had been seeing things, but went back to look anyway. I was right! EIGHT HUNDRED THIRTY EIGHT people have viewed one of my VERY ordinary pictures! I went, what the......... When I post something here on RMG, itÂs usually viewed by between 20 and 60 peopleÂNOT 800!

The two picturesÂover 800 for the one and almost 700 views for the other oneÂwere of the Blackie sweet potato vine pictures I had posted when I was overwintering them in Â08. Trying to figure out why SO many people were looking at these particular pictures, I googled Blackie sweet potato vine and went to images! Nothing thereÂat least not on the first several pages. Then I googled it with gardenweb added, and, lo and behold my pictures were the third and sixth pictures on the first page! Wow! I think IÂve mentioned before how weird it feels when you go looking for pictures of something and wind up finding your own pictures! ItÂs just always VERY unexpected when it happens to me!

But at that point I decided that there probably werenÂt too many people googling sweet potato vine with gardenweb, so I was still trying to figure out how they were getting to it. I googled the sweet potato vine with "overwinter," and thatÂs where theyÂre finding it. One picture was on the first page, and one was on the third page! Wow! I never have figured out how google searches are "ordered," and now I REALLY wonder how itÂs done!

Some day IÂm gonna need to take the time to look thru some of my other albums to see if any of my other pictures are zooming around the world!

Has anybody else around here ever noticed that some of their pictures have been looked at overandoverandover...........?

WOW! Double WOW! My google searches are done "through" AOL, so I was just wondering if a "real" google search would come up with the same thing. When I tried it (overwinter blackie sweet potato vine), that gardenweb thread came up as the SECOND result on the FIRST page! I didnÂt even have to go to the images page!

Does anybody around here know how the search results are prioritized when youÂre looking for something?

I am absolutely blown away with what IÂve found!

Skybird

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Comments (6)

bpgreen
16 years ago
"Does anybody around here know how the search results are prioritized when youÂre looking for something? "

Not exactly, and Google keeps changing how they do it. They use a bunch of different things, ranging from contextual relevance to metatags to number of pages linking to it to number of click-throughs from searches and so on. They change their methods periodically both to improve the accuracy of the results and to limit the effects of google bombing.
digit
16 years ago
google bombing . . . hey, that sounds like it could be fun. But, climbing to the top of google seems like it would have to be seen as an honor, Skybird! Yay!

I don't have an easy way to check on who looks at my snapshots . . . and going thru "deer in headlights" or "Pigpen on Welcome Mat" searches doesn't seem too likely to boost my feelings of accomplishment.

I do, now and then, decide to look for something that I hope others are finding and learning to appreciate. You take the Asian green, Maruba Santoh for example . . . okay, I can almost "hear" the eyeballs rolling!

Well anyway, if I do a google search of Maruba Santoh - - there I am! Yep, digitS' yammering on about Maruba Santoh and Fun Jen and other Asian veggies with missionary zeal!

Steve
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jnfr
16 years ago
Lots of people found your picture useful. Good for you!
Skybird - z5, Denver, Colorado
Original Author
16 years ago
Nice to see youÂre still checking in around here every now and then, BP! Thanks for the response. IÂve always kind of wondered how the search results are displayed, and I guess thereÂs no one answer then! I was just totally flabbergasted when I saw people had looked at that one picture that many times. Later yesterday I went thru some of my other albums and was amazed to see that some of the other pics had been viewed 300 or 400 times. I still can hardly believe it. I know when Skip still owned GW, almost any search about gardening came up with GW in the first few links, but since iV took over, you donÂt often see that.

Never heard of google bombing before, but just read up on it in Wikipedia. Interesting! I have definitely not been google bombing, and still canÂt believe some of the things IÂve posted have gotten enough hits to move them that far up. Guess itÂs just trying to think in computereze at my extreme age! When I was checking the pics yesterday, I was really surprised to find that some of the swap pics had gotten a lot of hits! I couldnÂt figure out any rhyme or reason to which ones were viewed a lot and which werenÂt

And, Digit, hey there! YouÂve got me beat! When I googled those fancy Asian veggies, you came up NUMBER ONE! Congratulations!

When IÂm posting here on RMG I always just think of it as talking to the people I know here, and the lurkers we all know are hanginÂ out around here, but I never really think of it as going "outside" of our friendly little community here. Seems like maybe I should try to be more aware of where this stuff might "go," but I probably wonÂt actually think about it when IÂm posting. Oh, well! Just have to start to clean up my language! ;-)

You post a lot of pics, Bonnie. Do you get any sort of a count on how many people view yours? If you do, check it out. You might be surprised too.

Still in disbelief,
Skybird
colokid
16 years ago
I just wanted to add that I think nothing on the web every dies or go away.
I once did a goggle for a computer problem only to come up with my own question I had asked about 3 years before. Needless to say that did not help any.
Right now one of my friends is bugged with people calling him to repair their cameras. Reason; about 4 years ago we need a part (switch) for an Olympus camera. They would only sell to repair shops, so he listed himself as xxxxx camera shop. He is getting about a call a week and he has to tell them that he got old and quit.
Don't ever under estimate the web. KennyP
gardenbutt
16 years ago
LOL, I had to go test this one.8 years ago my son did a small homemade pond filter for his little pond.It was used by many in the pond forums.. I googled Adams filter and yes there it was at the top of the list.. lol now that picture makes him look like a baby,, An old garden buddy put it on her site,I should go update the e-mail info and let her know I do not go by my old gardenweb name anymore,
Mary
aka Jwj