Early Sunday morning, literally a few minutes after it happened, I posted an entry about Ashlee Simpson's lip syncing incident on Saturday Night Live. (It's two entries below this one - or just click here). Because of the time it happened, after midnight Eastern time, it got very little 'conventional' news coverage until Sunday evening.
In the meantime, Google was busy indexing the Internet... including this site. All of a sudden, geofffox.com was listed up near the top when people searched to find out what had happened.
Because of this one event, this has been a very unusual day on this website. Of all my October 2004 traffic, half has come today! In fact, I have delivered nearly twenty times my normal number of pages, and the day's not over yet.
So, what have I learned from this? Certainly the power of Google. I always knew it drove Internet traffic, but never to the extent I see today. And I didn't even write my page to be optimized for Google. There are ways it could have been presented which would have gotten me more search hits.
It's also obvious that many of the entertainment sites people depend on are really Monday through Friday affairs with minimal or no weekend staffing. Yesterday, once I realized the traffic had begun, I looked at all the conventional entertainment news sites and found virtually nothing on this story. I haven't looked tonight, but I'll bet Entertainment Tonight, Access Hollywood and the others led with Ashlee's problem.
It will be interesting to see how quickly the story of her scheduled 'live' performance tonight is reported. I'm guessing this one will get online a lot sooner, and by sites that have more 'schlep' than I have.
If you are here for the Ashlee story, thanks for coming by. Take a look around. Squeeze the produce. Post a comment. Come again any time. I'm thrilled you're here.
hey youre one lucky guy i guess. i did a yahoo search and found your site as well... well i got matt drudge's site first, but i continued on to yours later. i learned a lot about pumpins and squirrels here before scrolling down, though.
I found your site yahooing for Simpson, started readin', and found it pretty interesting.
Wasn't until I scrolled farther down that I saw weather info and realized "this is the Geoff Fox that does the weather and those documentaries".
Nice site, good photos too.
Hi, Yes, I am another seeker of Ashlee info. After I heard what happened, I wanted to see a multi media video of it so I could judge for myself. Under your "multi media" links on the right side of the page, I clicked on "Interesting Stuff I Do on Tv." Interestingly, one of the ladies that you interviewed showed what "monkey movements" are. Isn't this what Ashelee Simpson was doing on stage too? She did a combination of a hoe down and monkey movements. I was quite entertained.
I liked going through your blog. I had to crack up at the "rat" (aka squirrel) eating the pumpkin on your porch! The picture is hilarious! If you are truly blessed, they will only nibble in places that will form a face thus killing two birds with one stone.
I also read your entry about the election polls and how they really do not dictate who wins the presidential race. I think this race is so close that it will come down to the wire before we know who will win. Personally, I am a Republican who is voting for Kerry. Need I say more? To use your phrase, Bush is full of verbal "monkey movements." So is Ashlee.
Keep up the site. Like Ahnold, I'll be back!
Hey Geoff,
I've setup a website to cover the entire Ashlee Simpson lip sync SNL drama.
I have all the videos, photos and tributes on there.