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The second most famous Will in the world Aug 02

Two fingers to Will Smith, Will Smith and Will Self because that’s me according to Google:

Google results for 'will'

And yet – presumably because other bloggers link me by my first or full name – I’m not even on the first page for Howells. As my boss says, “That’s the problem with ranking.”*

I’m not sure what Google’s description of this blog as “politics, genealogy and food” is suggesting. It seems to have originated here so I’ve submitted a change to remove the reference to food. I wouldn’t want anyone to come here looking for recipes – they’d be terribly disappointed.

(*Let me pre-empt comments of the “I thought the problem with ranking was that you went blind” variety.)

7 Responses

  1. You’re first when I do it 😀

  2. You’re first when I try it too.

    I’m only the 49th most famous Stephen, though 🙁 …… who is this ‘Stephen Hawking’ guy anyway, and what the bloody hell has he ever done to merit being first?

  3. 3
    Will 

    Oh, I’m first when I do it now. I wonder what happened to London’s Libraries…

    I disagreed with Stephen Hawking once. He later confessed that he was wrong. And thus I won.

  4. Although you might want to rename the title to “in the UK” as you end up tenth on google.com

  5. 5
    Will 

    I don’t think it’s as simple as that. I’m doing the same search now as I did from a different PC earlier today and I’ve gone completely. When I did it early on I was second, but other people had me first, then I was first from my PC too. (Although if I picked UK only I dropped a few places.) I wonder if I have been excised by the anti-Google Bomb detector…

  6. 6
    Peter 

    Currently at top of page 2, immediately above Will Smith at 12, and Will and Grace at 13.

    Awesome.

  1. 7
    Niles’s Blog » Google (via Pingback)

    […] But Google is erratic — look at Will Howell’s experience a few weeks ago.  As far as I’m concerned, one of the links for me – the http://www.niles.org.uk links – now point to web space I am not actively using and am still thinking up for a long term use for; I’m not sure where Google get the description line for this domain, but how do I change it if my personal circumstances change? The thing that really gets me, though, is looking through my referrer logs to find out how people get to my website.  And Google send almost a hundred people every day with various different criteria. […]