Search me!

click photo to enlarge
The ability to search the internet effectively is a useful skill, yet, if my experience is anything to go by, there are a lot of people who haven't got beyond the most basic level. One of the interesting features of my "hit counter" (SiteMeter at the bottom of this page) is that it shows me the search engines and the search words that brought individuals to PhotoReflect. In recent weeks I've started to notice Microsoft's Bing making an appearance. Google, of course, has been the most commonly used search engine, followed by Yahoo, with all the others as "also rans."

Why do I say that many people don't use these sophisticated search engines well? An example will illustrate the point to best effect. Yesterday someone, somewhere in the UK, entered the words "fylde hag" into Bing. That brought them to a page of Bing search results - http://www.bing.com/search?q=fylde%20hag&first=11&FORM=PERE - with at the top a PhotoReflect reference to the sought after term. The person followed this link to the start of a page of posts from May 2006 - http://photoreflect.blogspot.com/2006_05_01_archive.html . At this point that person appears to have looked at what was visible on screen and gone no further to find what they wanted. In fact they must have gone elsewhere because their stay on PhotoReflect was recorded as less than one second. So, despite having gone to a link with information about their search terms they appear not to have had the skills to find it. He (or she) didn't scroll down to the fifth post on the page: that would have found it. They didn't enter the search term in the Blogger search box: that would have found it. Nor did they use their browser's facility to search the page Bing had sent them to: that would have found it too. You might think that this is a case where someone had gathered as much information as they needed and couldn't be bothered to search further for what they thought would duplicate information they already had. Perhaps. The trouble is, I see evidence of this kind of poor searching most days, often several times! I remember, as a student, being taught how to search libraries and archives using card indices, microfiche and so on. Today these courses must have expanded to include the internet. Perhaps the poor search skills that I highlight shows there's a need for a basic course for the layperson.

All this, of course, has absolutely nothing to do with my photograph of Fringed Water Lilies (Nymphoides peltata) that I photographed on the Maud Foster Drain at Boston, Lincolnshire. Except for the fact that I'd always thought they were Yellow Water Lilies (Nuphar lutea), until an internet search put me right.

By the way, if you're wondering who or what the "Fylde hag" is or was, this post - Do you believe in magic - tells the tale.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 35mm macro, (70mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f6.3
Shutter Speed: 1/2
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -2.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Who visits PhotoReflect?

click photo to enlarge
At the very bottom of this page is a hit counter icon/link from Site Meter. By using a piece of their code in the Blogger template I can gather a few useful statistics about the hits I get. As well as the number of visitors, how many pages they view, how long they spend here, which country they're from and so on, it also tells me some basic information about their computer - screen resolution, OS, browser, colour depth and other bits and pieces. Lest anyone should see this as Big Brotherish, let me emphasise that NONE of this is personal information, just generic stuff that's useful in terms of deciding how to present web pages to potential viewers and readers.

About half of the people I get each day are returning visitors who usually click a browser bookmark of the blog address or come through, for example, Google Reader, or the Atom feed, though now and again I get a flurry from an email link. The other half arrive here through either a text or an image search. One of the other useful pieces of information that the hit counter offers is details of the search that a person makes - the search engine and search terms are listed. If that's news to anyone, or if some people find it a bit scary, get used to it: all this information has always been available from internet users. However, only your ISP, or perhaps some shadowy government agency with your ISP's connivance, can track that information back to you.

But, that's not the main point of today's "reflection" which is to comment on how surprising it can be to discover which blog images and articles attract the most search engine hits. In recent weeks, topping the text searches has been Why black and white photography? and The corrugated chair, whilst Beautiful feathers and A Victorian Garden have been the most popular image searches. Why those? Well it's my guess that they perhaps deal with subjects that are less widely covered on the web, so come nearer the top of a search. But, I can't acount for my all-time winner in terms of searches, both text and image - Blue glass, with clouds. What is it about that post that regularly brings visitors to PhotoReflect? I'm at a loss to answer my own question.

One thing I can say with a fair degree of certainty is that today's black and white rendering of a pink rose, a conversion I did for the lovely soft grey tones that it produced, will generate few search-based hits!

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 35mm macro (70mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f9
Shutter Speed: 1/200
ISO: 200
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On