Thanks Google – Much to My Surprise

As websites go, this one isn’t Wal-Mart, it’s mom and pop. Actually it’s just pop, as mom doesn’t code websites in PHP, HTML, CSS and the other obscure computer languages I deal with.

What I’m getting at is, this is a very small site run by one individual. Though I want lots of people coming here, I have no way of attracting them except by links from other sites (always appreciated) and citations on search engines like Google.

A few months back I noticed lots of people going to my September 2003 archive page. What was driving them there? The answer: Google!

If you go to Google’s image search and enter “hurricane photo“, the resulting page has one shot of a ship that stands out. That phony hurricane photo, which has been circulating across the net for years, is on my site.

Yesterday I found if you enter “Thanksgiving Day Parade“, one of my photos is first on the screen! Interestingly, if you leave out the word “day” you’ll find someone else in the top spot and my photos nowhere to be seen.

Website traffic is not the difference between life and death for me. On the other hand, more is definitely better. By understanding how Google decides to do what they do, I can get more people here. I think I understand why my images do so well. Now if I could only get my text to register the same way.

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