It’s fascinating to see what searches will bring up your site. I hadn’t realized until today that I could see the statistics for what search terms were used by people to visit this site. I knew you could find the referrers and what domains people come from, but until recently I wasn’t listed in any of the search engines so I never saw what terms came up. Not too surprisingly, several of the searches came from looking for broccoli. I had a couple hits from people searching for Olive Garden‘s garlic-herb chicken con broccoli, which is what I usually get when I go there, and there are several from people looking for information on the Trek 7500, which I bought last summer. I didn’t think anyone that I didn’t know ever came across the site, but it makes sense that once it was indexed by google and other search engines, it would come up. I still don’t have enough traffic to have more than one hit for earch search, but it is still interesting.
I remember back when people were trying to be careful about what personal information they put on line, in fear of net-stalkers, or other people knowing too much about them. Now that’s what blogs are for. People share the details of their life with complete strangers that they wouldn’t tell their close friends. I think it is good in many ways, very cathartic. Of course, there is still the danger of people becoming obsessed with someone they met over the net, but that’s a problem anyway, I never thought it was worse because of the internet or something stilly like that. How is it different than randomly following someone you see in a park? It’s much less dangerous in many ways. True, the internet makes some information that should be private a little easier to get than it used to (like social security numbers or drivers license information), but that was available for the right price anyway if you were really trying to get it.
If you are interested in sharing the little details of your life with the rest of the world, then why not? Some of the little things shared can be helpful to other people, like reviews of a bike, or descriptions of restaurants and their dinner offerings. I think it is useful to be able to see what real people think about things, rather than just professional reviews. Both are useful, but if you find someone that seems to have similar interests, you may value their opinion more than what you find in Consumer Reports or some other publication.