the purpose of the exercise

it happens to all of us.

i was looking up a thing and what i got instead of relevant links to articles was a wonderland of SEO linkfarms. there is a whole industry out there that assumes that the purpose of any given webpage is to use for SEO so somebody can make money.

and then secondarily there's a group of sites (mostly tumblrs) that assume the only reason you post original content is so that someone will follow and repost you because it's all about getting more attention or something.

let's be clear about the purpose of my blog: it is for me.

it is for me and for whatever persons came across it for whatever reason and decided they were interested in what i have to say. i often joke and say "both of you", but really on a regular basis i believe there are nearly two dozen of you along with spikes of occasional visitors.

with the kind of blog growth i am getting, i expect to have a regular audience of upwards of thirty people by the end of the decade.

and that's just fine with me.

but sometimes i look at my analytics.

because graphs.

and stuff.

like "why do the robocommenters all seem to love the post about pudding?"

so this week i looked at my analytics and i googled this blog and i had a look at the websites where they analyze your site to see if it is a good site for SEO.

because, apparently, robocommenters like to leave their spam on sites that are good SEO sites.

and i found some interesting things: apparently industry groups monitor even small blogs for activity that touches their sphere of influence, and my post or two on wind power has put me on the map of people managing web presence around that issue.

i have been flagged by groups concerned about copyfraud perpetrated by entertainment companies for my posts on that.

and then i have been listed on a some of BIG LISTS OF GEOCACHING BLOGS which as far as i can tell are simply compiled by searching every blog in the world for geocaching keywords.

i mention geocaching a lot here, but if you want to read about my actual geocaching, you have to go read my geocaching logs.

so those BIG LISTS OF GEOCACHING BLOGS are mostly just one topic linkfarms that somebody's hoping to get those .02 cents clickthroughts from.

ugh.

but maybe the ickiest are the many, many (manymany) sites that are there to explain to you or to people who want to use you for SEO, how "good" your site is, and what you can do to make it "better".

here is one site's analysis of this blog, in its entirety:

furthermoreflask

Submitted 2 years ago | Views 7

furthermoreflask has not been rated yet.

furthermoreflask is a blog about Flying Discs.

furthermore, flask: dreams of flying discs URL: http://furthermoreflask.blogspot.com

FEED: http://furthermoreflask.blogspot.com/rss.xml

i'd say they pretty much nailed me. yes, this is a blog about flying discs.

i'm giving you a link to just one of the horrid analysis sites, because it's interesting what information they collect, what they think is valuable, and what they advise. i'm ambivalent about giving them even the support of a link, because i think they are mostly for the sort of people who love MLM scams.

the horrid little analysis thinks i have too many outgoing links. you know, because instead of wanting to tell a story and provide my readers with the links to the information, i should be worried about my SEO potential.




no, no, no.

this is not about selling ads. it is not about SEO black hat garbage.  it is not about getting likes or backlinks or being shared or twitted.

it's just about telling the story of what i'm doing and what i'm thinking about, for myself and for the handful of you that wish to come along.

hi. happy you're here.