I should thank Nicki of Fyrefly’s Book Blog for two things: one is her awesome customized Book Blog Search Engine which I use to find other bloggers’ quotes for my reviews. The other is her semi-regular posts of her blog’s more unusual search terms, accompanied by hilarious responses to each. This is her most recent such post.
For non-bloggers and non-Wordpress bloggers who may not know, the WordPress statistics show bloggers – among other things – what search terms have led people to your blog.
I liked Fyrefly’s posts so much that I have been collecting odd and interesting search terms all year, so that I may post the ‘best’ ones in a year-end bonanza post. As I’ve accumulated quite a few, this will just be one part.
Sometimes the hilarity comes as a result of WordPress’ truncation of the search query, according to character limit:
critics on the guernsey literary and pot
– On a movie discussion board I used to frequent, posters would sometimes made lists such as “great movies to watch while you’re high”. I haven’t seen a literary equivalent, but I’m not sure The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society would be the obvious choice for such a list.
I get many search terms that are clearly from students looking for answers to homework assignments. A fairly blatant example:
19. describe the creature’s life in the
– That one is for Frankenstein, which remains a very popular subject for my blog’s search terms.
why is there so many details about frank
effect of desertion on the monster in fr
what did frankenstein forget to do
what did frankenstein in cemeteries?
frankenstein monster feeling sorry
why did the creature in frankenstein never recieve a name
– For some reason, the mix of bad grammar and the question framing always makes the Frankenstein queries sound childlike and plaintive, as if the student is really concerned about why the creature never received a name.
books that frankenstein should’ve read
– I’ll put this one to you, fellow bloggers. What books would you recommend to Frankenstein (or his creature, who read books while hiding)?
Typos!!
bristly jones diary
– Bridget’s toothbrush tells all.
sense and sensibility pain cover
– This may be a case where you’d judge a book by its cover.
is thady from castle rackrent irsish
Is ‘irsish’ what you call tax collectors from the Emerald Isle?
krit krat
– If you take a certain crunchy candy bar and Edwidge Danticat’s book and mix it together you get this.
ficks peole that are made out of metle
– I don’t even know what to speculate on with this one.
And then you get the overachieving searchers:
¿krik? ¡krak!
– I am impressed, especially as the book’s cover didn’t even have those upside-down punctuation marks.
More search terms to come on a later post . . .
A Good Stopping Point 
LOL! I love seeing these search terms. I can’t imagine having access to the internet when writing English home work assignments – I had to do it the hard way 🙂
I love seeing search terms, and I do know what you mean about the kids searching for information for their English homework. They always sound rather sad: “is susan goign to hell?” “something smart in latin” — I almost want to help them. But not really.
Someone found mine by typing “Erin Leigh nude” (OMG)…but my most popular search is either “hush”, “hush book”, or “hush donna jo napoli”. I get at least four searches a day for that one. Seems unlikely. And like you, I get a significant amount of people searching for, what are obviously, school assignments. I’ve actually wondered if any of my reviews have been plagiarized…
Oh I love having access to all this information. I think my two favorite search terms are “lobster librarian” and “librarians are assholes” (my blog was first for that one). Good times.
I love this! For some reason I never think to look at the search terms that brought people to my blog. I need to change that.
Someone must have been looking for a review of the Spanish language edition of Danticat’s book…
Books for Frankenstein’s monster? Maybe something gentle, like Pat the Bunny or Are You My Mother?
For Frankenstein himself? Maybe he’d appreciate Brave New World, but I suspect he’d be rather drawn to Of Mice and Men.
I don’t know exactly how you fix people that are made out of metal (or how that search term brought the person to your page), but I’ve heard if you go to the Emerald City, you can get a brand new heart…
Jackie – I know! I mean, I did have internet access starting in middle school, but it wasn’t quite the behemoth of information then as it is now.
Jenny – haha, I love your examples too. 🙂 They really do sound sad.
Erin – Ah yes, I’ve wondered about the plagiarism myself, and I’ll mention something about that in Part 2. It is funny which reviews will get the most hits sometimes. One surprisingly popular review of mine is one I did of a Chanel coffee table book.
Amy – “lobster librarian” – I love it! And how did you get the honor for being the first for “librarians are assholes?” 🙂
Vasilly – you should! They are usually fairly mundane, but there are gems.
Jason – *slaps forehead* of course! I never took Spanish, so my mind doesn’t immediately go there. LOL for the Are You My Mother? suggestion for Frankenstein’s monster. As for the “ficks peole out of metle”, my guess is it connected with my review of Nathanial Fick’s book One Bullet Away.
This is great, I never thought about sharing my search terms, though I do find them quite entertaining!
Hilarious search terms. LOL. I found the one about Bridget’s toothbrush particularly funny. 🙂
Scott – if you can access them, they can be quite funny!
Darlyn – Thanks!