Having a Web Page

Designing and maintaining a personal web page is an interesting and sometimes bizarre experience. I've put together a variety of resources, and I've learned a lot in the process.

Search Terms and Browsing Patterns

Most "normal" people don't realize how much information they give to web sites every time they connect to a page. I enjoy occasionally glancing through logs. I can see what terms people searched for on Google or Yahoo to get to my site or at what page they clicked on a link to my site. I can tell which of my pages were most popular, what operating systems and web browsers visitors used, what country they connected from, and how long they stayed at the site.

Here are a few of the more bizarre terms people have searched for, which somehow got them to my site. Sometimes I wonder how they expected to find anything. Often I wonder why they even wanted to search for these things in the first place.

• "how can i hack and see the files"
• "stuff to do on a boring" (went to Peter's page)
• "gumby mac os x"
• "how doing a resume," "making of resume"
• "voice over internet.pdf"
• "displays the output in 8 columns on 78 character wide lines in linux"
• "reading list for high school mormon"
• "mythtv homestar runner"
• "linux wine ugly grey emulator"
• "types of music in a three diagram form"
• "got a 36 on the act"

Here are some of the bizarre bagpipe-related search phrases:

• "free reason refills bagpipes"
• "is 6/8 faster than 4/4 bagpipe"
• "that song the bagpipes always play at parades", "bagpipe songs played at parades," "what is the bagpipe song played in parades?"
• "bagpipe great song"
• "bagpipe uses", "reason bagpipe"
• "what music does the bagpipe play?", "what type of music does the bagpipes produce?", "styles of music the bagpipe is in", "what type of music is the bagpipes", "all songs played with bagpipes"
• "bagpipes easy or not"
• "learning the highland bagpipes in 6 easy steps," "how to play bagpipes step by step for free," "basic notes and how to play them for the bagpipes"
• "bagpiper plays the melody on the"
• "listen to bagpipes playing"
• "song of bagpipes playing amazing grace", "hear amazing grace bag pipes", "listen to bagpipes play amazing grace"
• "tuning bagpipes to pipe organ"
• "list the three types of and notes bagpipe"

Sometimes people make a completely reasonable search but inappropriately arrive at my site. I imagine they get confused.

• "byu housing," "selling byu housing contract," "byu married housing," "byu off campus housing," "byu approved housing," "byu on campus housing," etc. (I get a lot of these, and I'm sure they aren't looking for a rant)
• "resume making", "making a simple resume" (I doubt they've ever heard of LaTeX)
• "making latex" (Latex is not LaTeX)

Topher searched for other weird search phrases would lead to my page, and he found that "ways to kill dr. frank w. fox" was a successful search.