I had several reasons for creating the Café several months ago. Mostly, I wanted to discipline myself to write, and write regularly. I also had a few things I wanted to write about.
I didn’t know if anyone would ever read anything at this site. I thought it would be nice if a few people did visit here from time to time, but it was never the primary purpose of this website to build circulation.
So, it was somewhat of a surprise to me to discover that visitors might be able to find the Café on Yahoo or Google. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that the Café is not totally invisible on either of these search engines.
For the heck of it, I did a Yahoo search for coyote road kill. This was the title piece at the Café a few weeks ago. I wondered if someone, searching the web about road kill generally, and coyote road kill specifically, would be referred to the Wolverine Café.
I discovered that the Wolverine Café was the 22nd item listed (on page 3) on the Yahoo search. Actually, when I double checked this before uploading today’s piece, I discovered that I moved up to 21st on the list. It was kind of neat to move up one notch in the standings. This ranking on the list put me ahead of The Coyote Page dedicated to the calling and hunting of coyotes. (This link is to the Coyote Page’s “The Ten Commandments of Coyote Calling.”)
The Café was still ranked below two separate links to a barbeque contest team named Coyote Road Kill. This team, by the way, finished 8th place in the pork competition at the 2004 Heating Up The Bay Contest in Las Vegas. (Trust me, I did not make this up.)
As 21st on the list, the Café was way behind a website called BBQ Resource and Tabloid Informant Devoted to America’s #1 Pasttime.
Thinking I was on a roll, I tried the same search on Google. I went through 89 pages (which is 890 links), and still did not find a reference to the Café.
Wondering what the deal was, I searched daylight savings time on Google. This was another piece at the Café a few weeks ago.
This search revealed 791 links to “daylight savings time”. I went through each page of the links, and found NO link to the Café. This actually reminded me of the commercial from a few years ago, with the guy who bought some upgrade or another that allowed him to surf the net quicker. To his surprise, and the punch line of the commercial, he actually reached the end of the internet. I felt the same way when I looked at all 791 links, without any link to this humble webpage.
So I tried one more. I searched by “Isle Royale” and “Treaty of Paris”, on both Yahoo and Google. This was to see if there would be any link to the Café’s short history of Isle Royale and how the Treaty of Paris made it part of the United States.
The results of the searches? Nothing. On either Yahoo or Google. Or at least nothing on the pages I looked at (I gave up after a while).
I was not totally shut out on Google. I made the search more specific: “Isle Royale Treaty of Paris”. And there it was – #32 on Google’s links!
This means if someone was searching the web for information on Isle Royale, he would never find the Café. Nor would someone searching for information on the Treaty of Paris. But (and this “but” is very important for someone who wants to be googled), if someone was searching the web for information on Isle Royale and the Treaty of Paris, and if that person was persistent enough to scan through several pages of links, he would eventually be referred to the piece at the Café!
I have absolutely no idea how Yahoo, Google, or the other search engines do what they do. I know it involves software that jumps from website to website, noting text and key words and codes, and retrieving it on the appropriate command. But I cannot fathom how this is done.
I do like the use of the word ”spider” to describe this type of software. The allusion to a spider crawling around the web is perfect.
I wonder if there are other spider web-type words which can be used by software developers to describe future programs. I can’t think of any. For example, what do you call a number of spiders which are grouped together? A herd? A flock? A gaggle? (If you actually want to learn about spiders – the insect, not the software – a good start would be this page created by 5th graders in Newfoundland.)
I can remember when, not so long ago, internet directories were done manually. The market was filled with “yellow pages” type directories of specialty websites. This, of course, became impractical when the web exploded. By the time a directory-writer found an applicable site, entered it into a directory, printed the directory, marketed and sold the directory, it was out of date.
The need for a printed directory also became less necessary when the web addresses got longer and more intuitive. We used to have to look up a web address. Now you can almost guess what it is. If you want to view the website of the new Chinese restaurant in Elk Rapids, you can probably find it at www.newchineserestaurantinelkrapids.com. With search engines, you don’t even need to know the address. It’s enough to yahoo or google the key words.
It is interesting how Yahoo and Google have gone from trade names to verbs, in a relatively short period of time. One doesn’t do a search on Google for scuba diving stores in town; one googles local scuba shops.
It is also ironic that yahoo is not commonly used as a verb, except in its marketing slogan: “Do you yahoo?” Google is used as a verb far more often, even though Google doesn’t like it. I understand it has even sent legal cease and desist notices to improper users of the tradename.
Personally, I would love to receive a cease and desist notice from Google, for my use of google as a verb. It would be further proof that I have been googled!
(2019 Update: I had many links in the 2005 post, but did not even attempt to find them for this re-posting.)