Retro Yakking

Image by Sammy0716 on Flickr.

“Wikpedia” is one of the most searched for words on the Internet. “Yet it does not exist!” I hear you scream, and you’d be correct. This is an example of a search term that’s based on a mistype, from which there’s huge rewards to be had for webmasters.

OK, I’ll come clean. This post is a Search Engine Optimisation article in disguise, and a case study of how I managed to get my crummy Geocities website to the top of a Google result page using Wikipedia and a deliberate spelling error.

The boring-ish background

A few years ago I created a research website for a college project. It was meant to be a low-maintenance site, one that I uploaded and left as an archive of my work on the internet. It has not been updated for three years and yet it still gets at least eight hits per day. This may perplex you somewhat, but read on and learn why this happens.

First of all, my site contained excerpts of text, otherwise undocumented on the internet, from a number of publications. When I came across Wikipedia in 2005, I thought I would help out by adding a sentence or two to the page on my website’s subject, using the secondary sources on my website. Of course, Wikipedia requires the addition of a reference for each piece of information added, so I included a link to my website in the appropriate section of the article.

Expand the knowledge base and get noticed at the same time

If you have a highly niche blog, then it is likely you might be the original reporter of certain news stories. Whilst Wikipedia frowns upon original research, if the references you add are embellished with genuine links to reputable news sites, it adds an element of respectability to the article.

Wikipedia is full of niche articles, maintained by hardcore fans and armchair experts. If you notice that a particular article is missing or currently unmonitored, then you may choose to create, adopt or expand it with your knowledge of the subject. If you are canny, you can use your blog as reference and gain an extra top ten Alexa linkback.

Don’t tell Jimmy Wales I said that…

Quick tip: put links to your blog on your own Wikipedia userpage. In fact, you could do pretty much anything to promote your content here, as long as it is vaguely related to you and your interests.

Making an ‘impresion’

Remember, I did tell you that my website’s relative success was twofold… and I haven’t yet told you about my most successful method of traffic generation. Well, I kind of did earlier. I made a spelling error in the title of one of the pages, shooting it to the top of the Google rankings of any search for the term, which was a common mis-spelling.

The mistake was semi-intentional, as it was a genuine error that stayed on the site for a few months. I only noticed it when I was looking through my traffic statistics and spotted that my glorious error was almost overloading my Geocities free site bandwidth with page requests. Not bad for a little website, eh?

As ever, a huge thanks to every single one of you visiting my blog through EntreCard, even those of you who are dropping and running. In return, this weekend I am attempting to leave a comment on almost all of the blogs I drop on. It’s proving quite a difficult and arduous task, but we shall see how it goes.

1. Mind Relaxing Ideas (31 drops) - a nicely designed, well-maintained celeb gossip fest.
2. Picture to People (30) - a cool little tool allowing you to add effects to photos without the aid of an image editing program. A nice, clear and simple design with a cool orange theme. Oh yeah.
3. Search Engine Panel (30) - useful resource for SEO fanatics. News and tips on priming your website for the search engines.
4. A Malaysian Abroad (30) - insightful and intelligent with a sense of humour too.
5. Quantum Indonesia Translogistic (30) - a well-written goods/business blog.
6. Lights Camera Action (30) - South Asian-centric news blog with a pretty mint page layout.
7. Kitchen Retro (30) - vintage kitsch curiosities. If my blog were actually about what the title promises, it would be very similar to this well put together blog.
8. The Everyday Adventurer (30) - armchair adventuring! Wonderful photographs.
9. The Junk Drawer  (30) - Another cool and nicely designed site by a passionate blogger. Junk found lying around the house, shops and various other places.
10. Rocket Scientist (30) - Very well written and thoughtful blog that deserves a place on every top ten list.

This is just the top ten, but you can be assured that if Entrecard did top 50 dropper stats lists then I would reproduce it here. Once again cheers to you all. Boing!

Update: it appears there are a bunch more droppers tied on thirty. Here are some of them:

• Health by Dr Atif Farid (30) - fascinating blog by a budding doctor. You’ll never have to visit your GP again! Or, maybe.
• Speak, Dog! Speak (30) - politics and dogs are a heady (and strange) mix, but SD!S straddles the boundaries and manages to be both appealing and intriguing, no mean feat. Woof.
• ThinkingOutLoudBlog.com (30) - bit of a mixed bag. The time and effort put into this blog really shows.

Fancy lawnmover racing? Image by Fir0002 at Wikipedia.

Rather than shape it, Wikipedia serves to only reflect the world around it. Well, that’s kind of the point of encyclopedias, you see. But that doesn’t necessarily mean Wikipedia is completely serious about itself all the time (that task is more than covered by the administrators) - their Silly Things and Unusual Articles pages are evidence of this.

“But Yak, this is just a complete sell out compilation article, isn’t it?”

Yes, you could call it that. But so what? And anyway, I have a big bumper post coming up this weekend explaining how I bent the rules… er, I mean, expanded the knowledge base of the wiki by adding references which just so happened to be at my website. More on that soon, but for now, here’s a list of some of my personal favourite pages on the whole of Wikipedia.

• Brfxxccxxmnpcccclllmmnprxvclmnckssqlbb11116 was the intended name of a child born in Sweden in 1991. Because the parents never legally named the child before its fifth birthday, they were fined 5,000 kronor (US$600). In protest, the parents attempted to register this 43-character name, but it was subsequently rejected for obvious reasons.
• Foreign accent syndrome, a condition whereby the sufferer’s linguistic capabilities are impaired to such a level that it sounds as if they are speaking in a foreign accent. Also, a quick mention here for alien hand syndrome, where the sufferer’s hand seems to be controlled by an mysterious ‘alien’ force. It would be useful to somehow be diagnosed with this just in case you accidentally shoot someone: “it wasn’t me, it was my alien hand!”
• Nazi UFOs, Hitler’s secret weapon. According to the theory, Germany was running a top secret army base to develop new technology in Antartctica. I also heard a weird, slightly related conspiracy theory that claimed UFOs were coming from the centre of the Earth, but I think the people who propagated that have since been executed for the sake of world sanity.
• Mountweazels are deliberately incorrect pieces of information inserted into maps, directories and (paper based) encyclopedias. These can range from obvious hoaxes to copyright traps which provide a reference point to detect copyright infringement, and famous examples include; Goblu and Beatosu, fictional place names on the 1978-79 official map of Michigan; Zzxjoanw, a completely made up musical term that “fooled logologists for years” and the Stone louse, an invented animal that appeared in a German medical dictionary.
• Hamster racing, Lawn mower racing and of course Yak racing. The latter is apparently a “common sport in Tibet and Mongolia, among other places” and something I wouldn’t mind trying myself.

All of these articles and more can be found at Wikipedia’s Unusual Articles page. If you ever read anything on Wikipedia, make sure it’s this.

A parting note

Remember a couple of weeks ago I featured a post about AOL disk disposal methods? Well, if Wikipedia is anything to go by, it seems some people do the exact opposite and collect them. People will collect anything these days. Fnurdletoot.

As soon as I began work on my forthcoming review of the Fonejacker DVD box set, news filtered through that creator Kayvan Novak is set to pilot a new show for Channel 4. In it, the Fonejacker star will adopt various disguises, including an Iranian taxi driver and an African toilet attendant. It is yet to be confirmed whether this will be a Nigerian scammer asking for  ‘tip monies’ in exchange for ‘qualité sanitisation’, but I’m sure that’s something Novak’s fans (including me) would love to see. Yuhs.

So it seems that Fonejacker maniacs will have something to keep them happy, even if Novak has explicitly mentioned that he does not want to make a third series. He did, however, say in a previous interview that he would be prepared to create a Fonejacker movie should the chance come along. Presumably nothing has developed from that since, so Fonejacker is highly unlikely to return for a long while.

Source: Itvuh.

• Be on the lookout for my review of Fonejacker: The Complete Series One and Two Doovde, which will be appearing here very soon.

Image courtesy of Hat Trick/Channel 4

Wigan Council has dispatched a crack team of experts to Hindley with the task of removing a troublesome visitor from the Council Office building.

It is not a local drunk or homeless person, rather a tree that is growing in one of the Town Hall’s chimneys. Though it is not entirely obvious to the casual passer-by, the uppermost branches protruding from the stack are clearly visible from Cross Street and the surrounding area. It is thought that many years ago, a seedling from a nearby tree found its way into the chimney, where it has been growing ever since.

Now, however, the tree is being removed after it was found to be causing structural damage to the building. Local resident Dan was surprised by the news:

I have been living in Hindley many years but have never noticed, or even heard of this. Seems a bit strange really - it’s so obvious. I suppose I just thought it was my eyes playing tricks on me, and what I was actually seeing was a tree growing behind the offices.

Workmen continue to erect scaffolding at the site.

Scaffolding is currently being put in place as the removal operation, which began on the 28th January, continues.

Photo gallery (click a thumbnail to enlarge)