As a special pre-holiday treat, we decided to share our more long tail search terms from last month (November 2007). Enjoy!
- How to read minds: 225 searches. Ever wonder how Rand seems to have so many eerily accurate predictions about the future of search engine algorithm changes? Well, so do 225 other people...
- Titties: 52 searches (thank Lucas for that one)
- Better than google: 51 searches. Meh, we already knew that SEOmoz was better than Google, sliced bread, and real butter combined (mmmmm, butter and Google sandwich...)
- How to speak English: 41 searches. Sadly, we only offer a course on "How to Speak English with the Occasional Injections of Superfluous U's into Words," taught by our favo(u)rite Kiwi, Jane.
- Barry bonds before and after: 22 searches. Sounds like a Jeopardy category waiting to happen...
- Good questions to ask: 22 searches. If you have to search for this, then you fail as a human being.
- Mud wrestling: 19 searches. How did they know about our team building exercises?
- Simpsonized pictures: 18 searches. I only threw this in because I geekily think it's cool that we rank for something Simpsons-related.
- What is an encyclopedia: 13 searches. Seriously? Seriously?!
- 20 questions to ask a guy: 10 searches. Um, ask them anything. It's not like Jane Goodall with the apes, for crying out loud.
- the incredibles: 10 searches. Hooray, we rank for a Pixar film!
- list of every website: 9 searches. Google returns a page saying "Displaying one of eleventy billion results."
6 searches:
- ive got a golden ticket. That golden ticket, of course, is *ahemshamelessplug* an SEOmoz Premium Membership! Woo hoo!
- fastest spider. I'd like to see a sequel search query called "2 fast 2 spider," but that's just me.
- hot young things. That's right. At SEOmoz we're so damn hot.
4 searches:
- Good to great Collins: I'd say good Collins is True Colors, but great Collins is Sussudio.
- Gorgeous website: Why, thank you! I'd say it's not too shabby!
- Self cannibalization: I bet we taste like spam (zing).
- Most romantic proposal. Yeah yeah, we know, Rand's romantic mushy mushy all that good stuff.
3 searches:
- how to freebase coke. Rand, is that how you're able to stay up so late blogging? We may need to stage an intervention...
- things to do with your spouse. Oh, I don't know, how about converse with them instead of spending all your time in front of a computer?
- set it and forget it rotisserie. My mom has one of these. When she first got it she made pork roast every weekend. I call that period of my life "the best ever."
- titties, titties, titties. Once again, thanks, Lucas.
- what to say to your loved one. Well, "I love you" is a start...
- how is oatmeal made? By grinding up pigeons, of course.
Two searches:
- internet makes people lazy. I'd like to see Google return a one box answer of "No sh*t, Sherlock."
- pay attention to me. Aw, they think the Internet is people!
- paris Hilton thumbs. They're probably covered with a mutant strain of gonorrhea.
- how does google see my site. Through the tiny camera they installed in you the last time you got knocked out at the dentist, silly!
- I work for google. I bet Adam Lasnik and Matt Cutts searched for this one, with Google returning a one box response of "Sigh, we know."
- Why Canadians are the best at hockey. Uh, a healthy diet of maple syrup and Tim Horton's?
- What are titties. Ok, seriously, Lucas...
- Weird porn thumbs. Apparently, if you have weird thumbs then you are well-equipped for a lucrative career in porn.
- How to speak the English. The fact that it's "the English" makes this search so much better.
- How big is the world wide web. Oh, I'd say it's about 650 Courics big.
- Nambla site password: I bet there's a fake retrieval site out there that promises the password and then busts the people who try to obtain it. It's probably run by Chris Hansen ("Why don't you take a seat...").
- How to read minds for real. The "for real" part cracked me up, as if Google only shows the real results to people who are serious about mind reading.
- Michael martinez hardcore seo. I bet the two people who searched for this term were Michael Martinez and his mom.
- Names to call your loved one. I don't recommend "ho bag."
- What if ron paul wins? I wonder how many people were expecting a straight answer from Google (e.g., "Well, then you're effed, I suppose").
- Rebecca Kelley arrested. Okay, for the record, that old lady deserved it.
- Hat sex xxx. Not only do these folks want hat sex, but they want it in its raunchiest form (hence the xxx).
- Things to do when your wife is away. How about hat sex?
- Underpants gnomes. Step 3: Profit!
- Naked john Michaels. John Michaels, I'm not sure who you are, but apparently some folks are looking for nude photos of you. Just a heads up.
One search:
- Whats the number to the guy who invented the world wide web? It's 555-are-you-effing-serious.
- Good questions to ask people in truth or dare. How about "I dare you to get your ass off the computer and go for a walk outside, for crying out loud."
- Is crack and freebase same thing. Okay, seriously, Rand, I'm going to tell you about this nifty little program. There are 12 "steps" too, and I know how much you like lists...
- Why cliques are skinny. Because being able to see your sternum is all the rage now!
- I can’t live without you. Aw, thanks!
- Complete appetizer setup. Crab cakes and prawns of some sort are a definite must.
- Evil cattle. They'll moo-rder you.
- Do you consider yourself to be lucky / unlucky? Give an example. It's like this person is signing Google up for a dating site. "Google, describe your perfect date..."
- Words to make up. If you search for a word to make up and find one, isn't that word already made up? Just throw some darts at a poster of the alphabet, for crying out loud.
- How to break a tedious day. This person has the freakin' INTERNET right at his fingertips, and he performs a search on how to break up a tedious day. Clearly the man does not know what StumbleUpon is.
- Please stop it. Aw, but I'm almost done!
- Art with elephant on stilts. This is so absurdly specific that I kind of want one for myself.
- How much is matt cutts worth. I bet Matt's wife searched for this shortly after that life insurance policy kicked in...
- Letting employees create their own fun. Ten bucks says that Bruce Clay searched for this. "Here, Lisa, here's a slinky. You get to play with it for five minutes, and then it's back to work."
- Hammer pants blog. Oh man, I'd so read this. I bet it's 2 legit, 2 legit 2 quit (hey heyyyyyyyyyy).
- How do people start getting famous. Don't wear underwear. That's a good start.
- Things you shouldnt do to your girlfriends dad. I'm guessing that asking him for a condom is at the top of the list...
- Why must people be very careful when using ether. Geez, I'd hate to see this guy's search history (I bet we'll find "why does fire feel ouchy," "how come I can't breathe underwater," and "gasoline smells good").
- How is it anatomically possible for someone to have super powers? God, I love the Internet.
- Ten signs that a man is never going to marry you. #1: You have a Cathy comic on your fridge and instead of a blanket, you sleep with 12 cats to keep you warm.
- Why does someone keep bugging me. Maybe it's because you're on your computer all day, and your roommate needs your rent check, you lazy arse.
- Opposing views on how anorexia and bulimia are bad for you. I like how this person wants to hear "opposing" view, like "Con: You can die. Pro: You'll fit into those skinny leg jeans!"
- How to make him think he cant live without me. The gift of an *ahemshamelessplug* SEOmoz Premium Membership is a good start! It's the gift that keeps on giving!
Hopefully you enjoyed a peek at our silly search phrases. We want to wish our readers a happy and safe holiday, and best of luck to everyone in the new year!
About rebecca —
Rebecca Kelley is the content marketing manager for Intego, a Mac software company. She also guest-blogs/freelances at various places and runs a couple hobby blogs for shits and giggles.
Evilgreenmonkey gets traffic on loads of weird search terms as well, such as:
I don't know why you think those terms are strange. I'd call that "targeted traffic" for you, Rob ;)
along the lines of monkeys, i have a site that ranks for "monkeys driving forklift". now i wish i could find a monkey driving a forklift. that sounds awesome.
Hey, I wanna play too: my favorite non-adult November search term for my blog has to be "I'm all kinds of crazy". Somebody's misguided attempt at self-diagnosis, I guess.
On the adult side, I got: "how many dirty test until you get violated". IMO, if you're not getting violated during the first dirty test, you're probably not doing it right.
That's awesome.
My favorite recent one of ours was:
billie piper tits
Exactly the sort of business we're looking for!
OMG, seriously in tears of laughter reading this post. Now granted, I've been moving all day and it is 1:45am but still . . . hilarious.
I love how you were edgey enough to go for it on this post. Being the perve that I am (especially at 2am), the
hat sex xxx line about killed me. I started choking, the whole bit. The follow up with the next line about what to do when your wife is away . . . still laughing about it. SEOmoz is currently 3 and 4 (this article 4) for the search hat sex xxx. I suspect by the end of the week (assuming another index) it will be #1.
Wow, great idea for a post. Rebecca you are hilarious. I wish I could give this post 11 thumbs up.
Ok, I had to reply to this because I have a site awhile ago where I noticed a "crack" related query. "HOW LONG DOES CRACK COCAINE STAY IN YOUR SYSTEM" (yes, all in caps). I think this could be us discovering a super niche?
Aside from that, my all time favorite search(also all in caps) "SWALLOWED TINFOIL EMERGENCY".
Excellent post though. Best thing I've read all day.
SWALLOWED TINFOIL EMERGENCY
ROFLMAO hahahahahahahahah
You're the SEO Princess of funny. Michael Martinez post - 20 hardcore SEO tips is actually quite interesting BTW.
Now that I've caused a scene by laughing loudly for ten minutes while the developers were trying to have a meeting, I have some comments to add.
Jane, I was going to link to the drivl one but you beat me to it.
Also of note, a few months ago I excitedly bragged that feedthebot.com was ranking third for "how to make someone poo themselves".
Well I am number one now!
It is good to see progress.
Good job, Google! High-five for relevancy.
Thanks to Pat's repeated comments about said ranking, SEOmoz is now ranked twice in the top 10 for that same query.
This post ranks for that term now. So that's the "fastest spider" taken care of!
Yes, I'm still in Seattle. Blah.
Haha! I bet after this article SEOMOZ will rank even better for all those wierd terms!
BUAHAHAHAHAHAAHA!!! OMG Rebecca, you are too frigg'n funny! I almost peed my pants laughing at your commentary!
You get thumbs up merely for the "Buahahaha..." even though I prefer the more extravigant "Bwuahaha..." variation.
OMG, my stomach hurts after laughing so long!
I remember on some of our web analytics someone had changed the URL query tag from something like "yahoo_banner" to something I'm really not going to print here. The result was that my boss asked in a whisper to explain how we had tons of session data on someone who apparently had come from some of the most abhorent marketing campaigns imaginable.
Would've been fine but the guy didn't even have the decency to convert to a purchase! :)
And just to echo so many comments before mine... what on God's earth is hat sex?! Is it anything like bicycle sex?
From the BBC Article "Bike sex man placed on probation"
"Stewart had denied the offence, claiming it was caused by a misunderstanding after he had too much to drink."
LOL, People never cease to amaze me. I guess everything is someone's fetish, whether it be hat sex, bicycles or even blog commenters. Feel the love...
Hat sex xxx? Is that like a black-hat and a white-hat gettin it on?
Here some unusual keywords which lead searchers from Google to my client website (he is a relationship specialist / family advice / psychologist):
This is an interesting example of high trust ranked sites ranking well for many non competitive terms based on body text.
If those visitors actually liked what they saw, explored and then returned, that makes the it all the more interesting.
On a related note, SEOMOZ is at page one for the term SEO on Google & Yahoo,and at page two for Search Engine Optimization on Google.
Could you verify the accuracy of these statistic from Compete.com regarding major search engine traffic to the top 50 websites - ranking high for the terms SEO and SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION
.
"Art with elephant on stilts. This is so absurdly specific that I kind of want one for myself."
Perhaps it's sad that I know these things, but that searcher was probably looking for a picture by Dalí called "Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bee around a Pomegranate a Second Before Awakening"...
Cf. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Dream_Caused_by_the_Flight_of_a_Bumblebee_around_a_Pomegranate_a_Second_Before_Awakening.jpg
"Perhaps it's sad that I know these things" Don't feel bad, I immediately thought about this painting.
https://dali.uffs.net/galerie/pictures/1948_the_elephants_01.jpg
Same concept and same artist However, I didn't know the name and did stupid google image queries for ten minutes until you posted.
Good on ya, Eltiti! I'm impressed. :)
actually there's a lot of artwork by dali with elephants with really long legs, i'm not sure if they're stilts or not.
Hehe, very good. Some of my faves...
"ho bag" - #1 on my list of names for my next pet, preferably a cat
"why does fire feel ouchy" - i just love the word ouchy
"instead of a blanket, you sleep with 12 cats to keep you warm" - sooo tempting to make a really crass, obvious joke about a bed full of p...
"words to make up" - the itty bitty romantic in me thought this might be someone trying to get back together with someone
This post is really funny... I have had several sudden laughs, especially in some points... for example, the case of "Michael martinez hardcore seo" and his mom... hehehehe... Happy holidays to all.
Hey Rebecca,
Thank you for this, I'm wiping away the tears right now. I'm glad somebody else finds humor in analytics like I do...
I regularly get visits for "am I a psychic" because I used the phrase in one of my posts about eMetrics. Apparently, analytics and SEO qualify me to give out tarot card reading advice.
Cheers,
-Alex
www.alexlcohen.com
I looked up "list of every website" in hopes that Google would actually have a one box result, alas they did not. However I was shocked and delighted to see that SEOmoz actually ranks #1 for that query!
PS-WTF "Hat Sex XXX"?
What is an encyclopedia: 13 searches. Seriously? Seriously?!
How about searching for "how do i find a search engine?"
I'd like to see that come across my logs, shortly before I 403 that IP address or redirect to dev\null.
"they think the Internet is people!"
I know this is a simpsons reference - but I can't think?
Only 2 visits for underpants gnomes? How pathetic. I know it is a specific and probably highly competitiive phrase. There is no reason in the world why moz shouldn't be optimizing for the phrase and dominating the serps.
In fact after domination of the phrase it should become the official moz work uniform!!!!!!!
"20 questions to ask a guy: 10 searches. Um, ask them anything. It's not like Jane Goodall with the apes, for crying out loud."
Uh, actually, I think it probably is EXACTLY like that. At least if you ask my wife. Or my mom. Or my daughter. Hmmm.
-OT
Omg that was amazing. Thank you so much internet/seomoz
Hahahaha, hilarity mission complete.
We actually rank on page 1 or 2 of the SERPs for 'titties'.
(Late to the comment party because I only restarted work last week)
is this going to be updated for the end of 2008? please!
Sure, I can look at another month in '08 and do an updated post. Which month do you have in mind? :D
Funny post!! But a little scared of what next months results will bring now that the kooks know they are in the spotlight!!
This is laugh out loud funny. Made my day!
I just spent an hour looking for some cool long tail keywords and couldn't come up with anything!! That's really frustrating!
Brent David Payne
oh...i'm so late...
unfortunately our company blog ranks #1 for "seo spammers dallas". gotta love that one.
ooh I got to this one late - I was giggling and cracking up at the office - I think they thought I was still doped up on mulled wine... lol.
One of my clients used to rank for "worst ENT surgeon" poor guy - it was only because he had a post about the worst ent surgeries or something. He almost had a heart attack when he saw it...
Thank god we fixed it..
Hilarious!
I have to admit I'm curious about the evil cattle.