Information Research Weblog

Now there's a funny thing - it seems that a number of people are hitting the Weblog through searching for something completely different, and yet decide to have a look.

For example, someone searching for 'Captain Stabbin' on msn.com found the link to my item on the Nigerian scam at number 28 on the output list - yet still clicked on the link to the log. I can't imagine the naive user doing that, so I assume that it must have been someone who recalled seeing my message on the log and wanted to find it again.

Similarly, someone searching for 'Internet 2' on Google found the Weblog link at number eight in the list, yet followed it. And another Google search for 'Joint use libraries' AND 'Syllabus', resulted in 14 items, of which the Weblog item was number 13 - and yet that was followed. Surely cases of people wanting to find things they'd seen before.

It seems unlikely, however, that someone searching for "What is the official name from the standards organization of the 11mbs wireless networking standard?" again on Google, would have seen a specific message on this topic. In fact, the link to the Weblog was number two on the list and led to the 'Wireless' channel of the log - nothing there to answer the question.

Most curious of all, however, was a search for 'sugar daddy phenomenon' - and, lo and behold!, the Weblog item that includes all three words is item number two - this time the 'Electronic publishing' channel of the log, which includes an item on the open access 'phenomenon', posted on 12 September 2003, which included a request for a 'sugar daddy' to support the journal.

Curious indeed are the ways of search engines and people - you can check this out at the counter service.

Incidentally, of 21 hits from search engine search outputs, 16 used some variant of Google.

Referring site	No. of hits	%
www.com.washington.edu/rccs/links.asp	83	2.00
www.doaj.org/links/term1870/term1940/	123	2.96
www.libdex.com/journals.html	125	3.01
www.shef.ac.uk/uni/academic/I-M/is/publications/index.html	157	3.78
bubl.ac.uk/journals/	200	4.81
libres.curtin.edu.au/periodicals.htm	91	2.19
www.searchenginewatch.com/searchday/article.php/2204961	104	2.50
www.google.com/search?	194	4.67
Total hits analysed 4158		25.90