Thursday, March 5, 2009

Can You Tell Me How to Get to the Sons of Norway Blog?

The other day I was taking a look at some recent visitor stats, and I noticed that the blog had become very popular with search engines on two topics: Gløgg recipes and the WWII Norwegian Resistance movement. In just the last couple months we’ve had a lot of new visitors stopping by to learn about both subjects, which I think is very cool. But then I got to wondering what other search terms were bringing visitors here. Most were pretty straightforward, like Norwegian Blog, Sons of Norway International Convention, etc.

But, in going through the list of thousands (literally) of search terms and keywords, I came across some pretty strange stuff. I found search terms that left me simultaneously laughing and scratching my head. So much so, that I thought it’d be fun to share some of the really choice keywords that have brought visitors to this little corner of teh intertubes.

With that I give you the Sons of Norway Blog’s Top 10 Strangest Search Terms!
  1. history of dark norwegians Ok…huh? Are Norwegians like Jedi now? Was someone trying to find Luke Skøywålker and Dærth Væderson? Actually, this term leads you back to the post about death of Aftenposten English.

  2. glad it's time for lutefisk again This one kinda threw me for a loop, because in the 9 years I’ve worked for Sons of Norway I have NEVER heard those six words spoken together. I’m not saying it doesn’t happen, just that it’s got to be very rare. Like seeing Bigfoot flying a UFO level of rarity.

  3. norwegian famous conga Until now I never knew that Afro-Cuban drums (or the line dance) were popular in Norway. Nor did I know that this blog was one of more than 50,000 sites that come back from the search term. Who knew that Norwegians like to get funky?

  4. drunken burping Huh? Why would anyone spend even a moment googling drunken burping??? More to the point, I’m curious if they were pleasantly surprised or disheartened when they followed the link to our blog, only to find an article about a drunk moose. Just pondering that will provide me with entertainment for the rest of the day.

  5. orange peel psychoactive properties Hmmmmm. You people are starting to scare me. This term takes the searcher to our article on Gløgg recipes, but in looking at the other pages this search returned, I’m guessing that Gløgg isn’t what they were looking for. Darn hippies.

  6. frozen death grandfather adopted norway Ok, now it’s just getting weird.

  7. norway food fish smells bad This one leads visitors back to the article I wrote in October about strange/dangerous foods in Norway. But, again, I have to ask why would someone combine these five words into a web search? I mean not all Norwegian food or fish smell bad. Take salmon for example; very tasty and very nutritious. I’m just saying, is all.

  8. nazi doctor treating rheumatoid arthritis norway …And just when I thought the frozen grandfather search would be the strangest, we get this gem. I’m not even going to touch this one other than to note that I could not replicate the search, so I have NO idea how it even ties to the blog.

  9. crown princess mette marit + ugly Oh come on now! I think the crown princess is quite fetching, actually. I mean she’s no Martha Louise (who I admittedly had a small crush on for years) but she’s certainly not ugly! You know, she got a lot of crap (undeservedly) from the Norwegian public and press when she first started dating crown prince Haakon but it’s been more than a decade! Come on people—don’t be haters!

  10. christmas fish soaked in poison Yeah…let’s really let this one sink in. Take a minute if you need to—I did. Again, this leads a visitor back to the post about strange Norwegian foods, but here it’s a little out of context. I’m almost afraid to ask what someone might be trying to accomplish with this kind of web search. However, if they read my post, they probably learned that you don’t need to soak certain fish in poison to make them poisonous. Is this a sign that I ought to be more careful about what I eat this year at Christmas dinner?
Wow, I've read through this post five times now and I'm still alternatingly shaking my head and ROTFL (just a shout out for teh kidz). This makes me curious, though, in a morbid sort of way. Are there even stranger/funnier keywords or search strings that lead to the blog? So curious, in fact, that I am going to make this into a contest!

Here's the deal: whoever sends me the strangest/funniest search terms that lead to the Sons of Norway blog will receive a free Norwegian flag keychain. You can either post them here on the blog comments, or e-mail me at eevans@sofn.com. If we get enough responses, I’ll share the funniest here. Alright, now head on over to Google and see what you can come up with! Good luck and good searching everyone!

8 comments:

MJ said...

I am laughing my head off! Thanks a lot, pal. Now instead of working and/or getting my taxes ready, I'm going to spending all my time on google.

Erik Evans said...

Just remember that the IRS won't accept "Googling" as a good reason to grant an extension.

MJ said...

Shucks!

PDX pride said...

*giggling* That's great! Oh, the "dark Norwegians" term is a reference to Sami, who are generally darker of skin and hair color than the "traditional" blonde-haired, blue-eyed.

Erik Evans said...

Well, see that? I learned something new! I wasn't sure what the dark norwegian search term meant. Thanks for the info!

Don't forget, if you can find the oddest search term that brings you to the blog, I'm giving away free stuff!

MJ said...

SO funny!

Unemployment Guru said...

Erik,

Didn't mean to be offensive. Give those two fellows my apologies and thanks for deleting the previous comments...

j.

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