blonde skips work

I'm not a blonde and I'm not skipping work, so you may wonder what exactly "blonde skips work" means, and what a post with that title is doing on my blog. I wondered the same thing when I saw it in the search terms that Google told me was getting people to this site.

That's right, it's time for another look at search terms! I've done this once before and have been collecting the more interesting terms since then, and it's time to review them again.

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Last time I tried to organize the terms, starting with the garden-related searches -- the ones that made the most sense, then moving to the more obscure and confusing searches.

This time I'm not going to think too much. I'll group some terms together and comment where appropriate, but  I've left these unorganized for the most part. (Like the search terms themselves, or my thoughts on most days)

• "blonde skips work"

Right off the bat, I really wonder how Google gets people to my site. Yes I did a post called "beautiful blonde bamboo", but it's nowhere near the top of the list for a search on "blonde skips work".

• "birds nest fungus bad for plants"
• "do deer eat bugleweed"
• "fast-growing vine not as invasive as sweet autumn clematis?"
• "do gophers eat iris leaves"

Now these make sense! Gardeners with questions, turning to the global community for help. I've posted about birds nest fungus (not bad for plants) before, deer, bugleweed, sweet autumn clematis, and irises. I may have mentioned the word "gopher" once or twice, but I have a feeling that most of these people left my site with the same amount of information they had when they started.

Let's keep going with the garden-related searches:

• "cherry tree rhizomes stop"

Okay, you lost me now. Cherry trees don't have rhizomes. Or maybe they're asking if a cherry tree will stop the spread of (bamboo) rhizomes. I think I may have mentioned that a wild cherry tree grows right next to one of my bamboo plantings, making my hunt for escaping rhizomes much more difficult. Maybe I helped this person then.

• "cicada damage repair"
• "cicada -fish bait st louis"

These make some sense, as I had several posts about cicadas this year.

• "cicadas what good are they 2011"

This was almost certainly somebody who was really fed up with the very noisy swarms of these cyclical insects, and I can almost feel their frustration as they typed this. I'm surprised it's not ALL IN CAPS!!

• "brown caterpillar with claws in the back"

I sure hope they mean the back of the caterpillar itself, not in their own back. I can picture somebody calmly coming in from the garden, sitting down at the computer and typing this, then standing up to go back outside after a few minutes of reading. As they turn around to leave the room, we see a huge brown caterpillar clinging to the back of their shirt.

• "caterpillar feet template"

Pretty sure you didn't find what you were looking for on my site. (Maybe check the back of the person who typed the previous search?) I really wonder what this would be used for.

• "garden blog too many plants"

If I ever change the title of my blog, this is what it will be. Simple and direct.

• "are tiny ants harmful on coneflowers?"
• "are tiny ants harmful to coneflowers?"

Not satisfied with the results of their first search, they made a change that to humans makes quite a bit of difference, but Google is ignoring those prepositions anyway so gives the exact same results the second time. Funny that they came to my site after both searches -- probably clicked on exactly the same link too. (Your browser colors already-visited links differently to remind you what you've already seen. Thanks for visiting though!)

• "can you cut deck boards with a table swa"

Google corrects typos. Still don't know why you'd get to my blog with this search.

• "can't catch moles in garden"
• "can my dog catch mols"

I wonder if it was the same person who typed both of these? I hope it was. Again, I can picture them sitting at the computer, their frustration with those tunneling creatures building, watching their lawn and garden beds being slowly tilled from below. I was so hoping that the next search term on the list was "where to buy garden dynamite" or something equally excessive. Maybe it was, but I just haven't written about dynamite before, so they didn't find INWIG in the search results. (Now that I have mentioned "dynamite" a few times here, I expect I'll start seeing it turn up.)

• "be few in words images"

So poetic, but how did you find me? There are zillions of tired bloggers who create "Wordless Wednesday" or similar posts all the time. How did you get here?

• "bamboo has escaped it's pot"

This one is obvious. "Bamboo" is my most-mentioned topic I think.

• "cutting away driveway section for plants"

This one I have no idea. I went 20 pages into Google results after typing this term and still didn't find any of my posts listed. How much patience do people have? Actually, I've been thinking about cutting part of my concrete driveway, but have I ever mentioned that in a post? Is Google reading my mind (as many people probably already think)?

Speaking of patience, let's move this along a bit...

• "aphids or something else?"
• "my cypress vines aren't growing!"
• "elephant ears plant shoots from stem"
• "echinacea unusual"
• "upside down boring bee nests"
• "are tomato worms and elaphant hawk caterpilliars the same"
• "how to overwinter king tut plants"

These are all perfectly understandable -- gardening questions that would logically lead people here. I can picture the posts that people (hopefully) found with most of these.

These are less understandable at first glance:

• "shapleigh mowers st.louis"
• "cat in leaf pile"
• "fuzzy oak gall tribble"
• "the crack garden"
• "but i'm all ears"

Less understandable unless you really know my past posts -- I've posted about every single one of these, with almost these exact terms used as titles or in the posts. As an engineer, seeing the direct connections between search terms and my posts gives me a good feeling.

These next ones however, do not give me a good feeling. They leave me wondering what the heck the searcher was thinking. As I said before, one of the best things about Google is that you can type any crazy thing in and get something back. Great fun sometimes, but useful? Probably not.

• "can i have some sneak in my clean yard"
• "coathanger lavendel"
• "late but i don't"
• "i'll be late but i'll be in"
• "earthworm with other"
• "7 year anniversary at your job"

The person who was late must have been typing in the wrong window on their computer, right? Or maybe they were trying to research excuses for their boss. I'm guessing the late excuse person is not same as the 7-year anniversary one.

I like the people who talk to Google as if it's a person, or a computer from Star Trek:

• "5 dead shrews in garden, why??"
• "my plants grow fine at 7.0ph"

Okay, that last one sounds like bragging to me. It also makes me wonder what exactly the person wanted to find out.

These last two sound like personal insults, either to my garden or to me directly:

• "mud clump"
• "hideous creature"

Maybe I'm just sensitive after reading through all of this nonsense. At least "hideous creature" doesn't lead people to my "About me" page... does it?

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