Statistics Can Be Entertaining

We had a lot of fun the other day looking at the statistics for our flickr site. (That’s where we keep out photos, and there’s a link to it over on the sidebar --->). Since this blog only gets about 10 hits a day while our flickr site has received over 89,000 views, the stats for our photos are so much more entertaining than the stats for this blog.

For instance, we have records of all the search terms people have used on the popular search engines to get to our flickr site. I have compiled the top ten for your enjoyment:

10. “ferrier, haiti” (This reminds me that we do indeed have pictures posted on flickr from John’s mission trip to Haiti back in the day of the first digital camera – which explains why those pictures are tiny and fuzzy.)

9. “eurotower” (Not a memorable photo for me, but I did stand in front of it while exploring Frankfurt with a friend while our husbands were in a training meeting.)

8. “house of blues dallas” (Never been, but I would really like to attend the Gospel Sunday Brunch one day.)

7. “matisse museum” (That’s in Nice, France. Didn’t go in, just took a picture from the outside. I think the museum was closed the day I was there. Again, a picture taken while John was working.)

6. “arenas de cimiez” (It’s a grove of olive trees in Nice, France. Yet another sight-seeing tour taken while John was working.)

5. “disney world splash mountain” (You could also add any search term with “disney” in it and add it to the list. Apparently people search for images from Disney World quite frequently.)

4. “world war ii holocaust” (Our photos are specifically from Auschwitz and Birkenau.)

3. “cannabis” (We did live in Amsterdam.)

2. “neanderthal” (There’s a whole museum in Germany.)

1. “2008 ford focus” (What?!? Out of all the interesting photos we have this one search term has brought nearly 100 more people to our flickr site than any other search term! What is going on? If you’ve been reading the blog, you know all about the story of the free Ford Focus.)

I made a unique observation of search engines while looking at these statistics. It seems many more people use Yahoo as their primary search engine. I myself prefer Google, but I must be more international or cultured or something because it seems a larger majority of search terms from Google, as compared to Yahoo, are foreign language searches. Clearly the world at large prefers Google.

Or maybe a lot of our photo descriptions include foreign words because many of them were taken in a foreign country. Hmmm. I’m sure there’s some statistical, scientific way to determine this, but I am only a lowly layperson making off-the-cuff observations.

So, speaking of non-scientific observations, I would now like to share with you some of the more amusing search terms that bring people to our flickr site. Ready?

"Nick's mama" (There is, in fact, a picture of Nick’s mama on our flickr site, but I can’t imagine who would search for that exact term.)

“Valentine cake” (In the list of images that this search term brings up, ours is the drippy, obviously non-professional cake in the bunch. Oh, but it is sooooo good!)

“Thug fairy” (I believe this search will bring you to our picture of a large middle-aged man dressed up in tights, a tutu, and wings to represent the tooth fairy at a costume party.)

“Tina Napoleon Dynamite” (Obviously there’s a cult following if people are actually searching for this. And we do have a picture of a lama who could be Tina.)

“Donkeys dead” also “dead ducks” (I assure you we have no pictures of dead animals on our flickr site. I am too squeamish to stare at, much less photograph, expired animals.)

“Muddy boots” (Now there’s an exciting picture for you! And, boy, are there LOTS of them out there.)

“Food on Splendour of the Seas” (I think it’s really “Splendor”, and I can recommend the food as being pretty tasty.)

“Haiti World Hunger” (Congratulations for being interested in a worthy cause. Check it out here.)

“Santa Claus Skating” (Of course Santa’s doing this in his time off because everybody knows he’s a busy man making toys, checking his list twice, and teaching the reindeer how to fly during skating season.)

“A huge sewer system” (Yep. There’s a picture of me standing in one. No worries…it hasn’t been used as a sewer system for thousands of years. I hope.)