Search terms

I don’t normally spend a lot of time looking at the stats for this blog, except to exult when there’s a spike in views. (Best day yet: January 19, with 269 page views. That’s not 269 unique visitors, alas, but still.) I recently noticed that not a single day has gone by without at least a handful of visitors, which is a bit surprising given that there have been multiple-week stretches with no posts. Most everyone reading this are friends and family and there are predictable spikes when there’s a new post, so I was wondering who these other visitors are. What brings them here?

Well, first of all I was shocked to see just how much of the world has seen this blog. The majority of these are single- or low-view visits, but hey. A couple of views from Algeria, a couple from Egypt, and all of a sudden North Africa is lit up. Clearly I’ve got broad, cross-cultural appeal. Heh.

A few take-home messages:

• I’ve got Western Europe wrapped up, except for Portugal. What’s the deal, Portugal? It can’t be the language issue, since I’ve head three views from Brazil. Get with it.
• My highest readership comes from the US, obviously. In second place is Hong Kong. This is unsurprising. In third place is Thailand. Whoa! Who’s reading my blog in Thailand? I love your country’s cuisine. Let’s talk.

And here’s what the blog stats reveal about what brings people here. This is where it gets interesting. All search phrases are reproduced sic, editorial comments in [brackets].

As you might guess, a lot of the searches that bring people here are general HK-related stuff:

• hkid
• hong kong permanent resident
• hong kong skyline
• sheung wan man mo temple
• wong tai sin fortune telling
• which fortune teller stall accurate in wong tai sin temple [I particularly like this one]
• fa zu jie hong kong

The post on Shenzhen got a good amount of traffic too, via searches for, e.g.

• lo wu shopping centre
• shenzhen shopping
• shopping mall atrium design ideas
• secret rooms shenzhen bags
• greatly satisfied, satisfied, taking too long [seriously, that’s an actual search string]

Evidently the Matrix reference in that post was a hit, too, since these terms brought lots of people here for:

• the matrix the real world
• desert of the real

I’m not sure whether those searching for “desert of the real” were seeking information on The Matrix, Žižek, or Baudrillard, but whatever it was I’m sure they were disappointed.

There were two posts that got way more hits from outside search engines than other posts did.

One of those is about the mysterious anti-Falun Gong banners. Evidently others are as puzzled as I am:

• kong kong youth care association banners
  
• problems in hong kong from youth care association

The other post of interest is the one on the “love motels” of Kowloon Tong. Some of these searches are innocuous (seeking historical information, I’m sure), viz.:

• love motel hong kong
  
• list of hotels in kowloon in 1960s
• kowloon tong motel

But then there was more than a small handful of searches for “kowloon hookers.” So that’s nice.

The most interesting searches, though, are the wholly inexplicable. These are all actual searches that led people to this blog:

• parkour teletubbies
  
• pizza hut balloons
• diverse aliens
• than muscle thailand cambodia, or indonesia, or singapore, or laos, or malaysia, or tawan
• panoramic coffee beans

If anyone does happen to find some panoramic coffee beans, please do not grind them before taking a photo.