What Are You Searching For?

Every so often, I like to take a look at my WordPress dashboard. I am a little geeky that way, and frankly love all the behind-the-scenes, or under-the-hood stuff that makes it all run.  Long ago, early on in my illustrious blogging journey, I learned to stop fixating on the numbers and focus more on the engagement.

As for the comments, well, that goes without saying. Absolutely amazing.

And, seeing on the world map of where my blog posts are read never ceases to fascinate me.  Someone in the Maldives read what I have to say? I had to consult Google to get some coordinates.  Wonder how it translates in their language of Dhivehi?

It’s fun to see everything under the hood, but what I realized is truly the most entertaining are the search terms that bring folks to right here. This screen.  We all use categories, and tags, like breadcrumbs, hoping to lead horses to water and give them something to drink. Right?

So, we use terms like ‘television dramas‘, ‘life lessons‘, ‘encouragement‘, “mindfulness” , “photography” and “inspiration” . Oh and by the way, I went to a few of your blogs to find and borrow your tags. Recognize yourself in any of these?

I tend to ramble on about life, how I see it, what I think about it and perhaps what I would like it to be. So, some of my frequently used tags are in the vein of:   life, lessons learned, observations, growth, change, insights, etc.

Looking at the list of search terms that show up in my dashboard from over the last year, it’s no surprise to find things like:

friends are the family we choose for ourselves

something that I used to know

let it go

And even this one:  “reading is sexy“.  I can see how someone searching for that would land on this post.

And while hard to relate to , this search term “bam bam the whale”  definitely has some resonance with this post, and of course “smores in sugar cones” takes you straight to the Campfire Cones post. That’s a no brainer.

All fine and good.  So, I keep reading, and there are a few benign search terms like:

end of school countdown

perfectionist mindmapping

fine line between black and white

 and

how to play jacks

But, intermittently, it gets fun.  For example, these:

rubber swim girl

bleh  

boy pick toe

dose migraine pain smell stink

kangaroo drum roll

I am trying to not think about the fact that someone typed in “bleh” and ended up my blog. Bleh!

But the best, I saved for last…

Hot dog bun underwear.

I could not imagine what I could have ever written that would be a match for that search term. So, naturally, I had to find out. Hi ho, hi ho, off to Google I go.

Turns out, I wrote a post about being disorganized, not being able to finish one thought before starting another as I packed for last year’s Mother/Son camping trip. Hot dog buns, are of course, on any good mama’s camping list. And, though we know that beyond the one pair in use at time of arrival,  the extras tucked in the bag are rarely worn, underwear is packed for all good little campers. Who could possibly know that those two otherwise unrelated items would be what brought someone right HERE?!

And, now I know, there is such a thing as hot dog bun underwear. I mean, who knew, right? Next time someone searches for that, and arrives here, they are most welcome {Waving, hi!}.  I am kind of thinking though, that I don’t want to know anything about the folks who are searching for ‘boy pick toe‘ or ‘rubber swim girl‘.

I am so curious now. Go check under the hood; I would love to know the weirdest, funniest search term that someone typed into the Google search bar and were led and arrived on your blog.

Last but not least, ever wonder if your search terms are hiding out in someone’s WordPress dashboard?

Happy Searching…