Weird stuff afoot

[scottcsmith]

If any of you are Google experts, maybe you can help me out.

I keep getting e-mails from people that say they were doing a Google search on the radio network Air America and somehow end up at my web site.

I punched in "Air America" into Google and didn't find my web site. If I added my name I did.

Can someone possibly let me know what's happening or what site is re-directing people to my site? I guess it's good that people are going to my site, but oddly enough, everyone that has written in has been conservatives. Weird, huh? Why are they searching for "Air America?"

I dunno. Five e-mails all about Air America is very odd.

BTW, the name you'd find for me is Scott C. Smith.

[Wickerman]

1. Here is a convoluted theory

http://blogs.salon.com/0003635/2004/04/06.html

where you talk about air america?

[scottcsmith]

2. That cold be it

But no one ever reads my Salon blog (bastards!)

How long did it take you to find the Salon blog? And what did you search under?

I just punched in "Air America" into Google and got through the first ten pages of hits and didn't see my Salon blog.

[Wickerman]

8. IIRC I just typed in your name and Air America

:shrug:

[scottcsmith]

3. One other thing

The e-mail I get is essentially a variant on:
"I was doing a Google search on Air America and somehow ended up at your web site."

I just don't understand what kind of search lands people on my web site.

[salvorhardin]

4. Look at your referrer logs (n/t)

[Devils Advocate NZ]

5. Do you have access to the server logs?

You can often figure out how people found your page by checking the access logs. It should be configured to show the "referer" which is the page that contained the link they clicked on to get to your site.

The google.com pages will include the search string they used something like this:

http://www.google.com/search?q=Air+America&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en&meta=

If they are not coming directly from google however, the referer will of course point to the page they came from. If you try browsing some of these sites you might figure it out.

[scottcsmith]

6. I found my referrers log

What do you know, the #1 referrer is Conservative Underground! I should never have posted there.

I'm still not sure how people are getting to my site when searching on Air America.

D'oh!

:shrug:

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

7. Take a look there at CU. I would be that someone there

mentioned you as running your site. Maybe they are searching via CU's link to Google?

This is the link I find...

http://blogs.salon.com/0003635/2004/04/06.html

[scottcsmith]

9. I finally figured it out

So if you go to Google, and then to Google news, and search on "Air America" my article from Counterbias.com comes up as the second hit.