The Categories

Category	November Count	October Count
Billy Joel	237	183
Technology	191	196
Adult/Porn-Related	149	23
Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree	97	0
Celebrity Look Alikes	49	54
DSL	29	46
Cal/Stanford	25	23
Overrated Films	18	12
TicTacs	14	0
Concerts	12	14
Baton	11	12
Politics	8	15
Penn	6	13
Bruce Springsteen	4	27
Baseball	3	11
ISBS Song	1	18

Queries were up dramatically again this month (943 vs. 736), thanks to an explosion of Billy Joel queries, an even bigger explosion (you should pardon the expression) of Adult/Porn-related queries, my Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree photoblog, and a couple of posts I did on TicTacs. And you thought these How People Found Me posts were self-indulgent and boring...

After months of lagging slightly behind Technology, Billy Joel has surged past it with 237 unique queries in the month of November (up almost 30% from October). Back in October, I was shocked to see I had 23 unique Adult/Porn-Related queries that brought people to my site. Well, in November, it was 149. That's me - the Larry Flynt of the microblogosphere. Hah! Meanwhile, keep reading and check out some of the things people Google for (and then click through to my site for!) Words fail. In other news, fourteen separate TicTac related queries brought people to my site. Read about those below as well - it's hard not to laugh at just about any Google query about TicTacs, but these are especially rich.

Also interesting this month are the types of queries that dropped in popularity. Politics is down 47%, which probably has more to do with me not blogging about it than people not caring about it. Baseball is down 73%, which also makes sense given that October contained the post-season and November contains contract negotiations. Also, that country song with "I Should Be Sleeping" in the title seems to have run it's course - queries are down a whopping 95%. And in news that is sure to bother the Jersey crowd, queries about Bruce Springsteen dropped off a whopping 85%. Like baseball, though, Bruce wrapped up his big season in October.

The Referring Sites

This month's referring site of the month award goes to buzz.mn, James Lileks, proprietor. James posted something about Christmas lights this month, and I replied in the comments with a link to my Rockefeller Center exploits (hey - a little self-promotion never hurt anyone). My comment generated 130 pageviews from 36 unique visitors. Those Minnesotans are so nice, aren't they?

I also tried my hand at self-promotion on a New York Times blog called Dot Earth, which had talked about New York's efforts to make the tree more enviro-friendly. Again, my efforts yielded results - 61 pageviews from 17 unique visitors.

The Keywords

All told, a whopping 943 queries resulted in hits to Familygreenberg.com in November (207 more than were used in October). Here are some of the more entertaining samples:

We start with Billy Joel, in honor of his recent Google surge. There were bound to be some winners in a field of 237:

Query	Rank / # of Results	Comments
billy hoel 2007 concert song list	1 / 13,500	Once again, I prove to be the poor speller's best friend.
billy joel life homo	1 / 211,000	You'd think once a guy married (and had a child with) Christie Brinkley, questions about his sexuality would stop. But, noooooo....
billy joel sober now?	11 / 123,000	Man, I hope this was a fan and not his mother. Or his doctor...

Next, we move on to the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree. Again, with that many queries, there are bound to be one or two gems:

Query	Rank / # of Results	Comments
taco bell near Rockefeller Center	7 / 50,300	I list this as a query about the Christmas Tree, but it's really about baseball. In fact, the query's author could very well be me. When Taco Bell announced it was giving everyone in America a free taco because someone stole a base in the World Series, I went Googling around for a Taco Bell near my office (there isn't one).
2007 Rockefeller Christmas tree falls off truck	>500 / 9,210	Let me save you some time: No, it didn't.

Next, we move on to TicTacs. I remind you, these aren't all the TicTac related queries from which I received hits, these are just the funniest five:

Query	Rank / # of Results	Comments
Christmas color tic-tacs	>500 / 16,800	Someone's getting a pretty lousy Christmas gift this year, huh?
french tic tacs	29 / 26,800	For that special someone on your list who doesn't like the TicTacs with Christmas colors...
the truth about tic-tacs	1 / 19,000	Glad to be #1 on the list of people who help put all those nasty TicTac rumors to rest...
tictac.com sex	1 / 32	I'm one part disgusted and one part intrigued. What exactly does this mean? I mean how do you...? Where do you...? Why would you...? Nevermind all that, why am I the #1 search result?
what are in tictacs	>500 / 219,000	For the discerning halitosis sufferer. The FDA is always saying, you don't want to clean your breath with something until you know what's in it. Sensible.

Now it's time for our two monthly features. First, the generally wild and wacky:

Query	Rank / # of Results	Comments
emmy rossum's nose	16 / 64,900	I Should Be Sleeping - Blogging celebrity body parts since 2005.
how long a concert should be	9 / 11,100,000	It rather depends on who's performing, doesn't it?
mark pershes	1 / 465	This is actually quite touching. My wife's grandfather passed away this month at the age of 92. On the day of his funeral, two people Googled his name and cruised around my site, looking at old pictures of him with our family.
clonk scenarios	1 / 1	Back in July, a Google search for this phrase led someone to my site, despite the word "Clonk" not appearing anywhere on it. Today, the only result of the search "clonk scenarios" is my July "How People Found Me" report marvelling at how it happened the first time. Seems we have a self-fulfilling trend developing here...
no man is an island statue of liberty	>500 / 1,100,000	It's the second half of the cliche that you don't hear too often: "No man is an island, but one woman is - the Statue of Liberty."
my yahoo emails have gone to outlook	8 / 1,2340,000	Heh... makes it sound like they went there on their own accord. So when will they be back? Did you get a postcard? I hear Outlook is lovely in winter...

And finally, the Adult/Porn-Related queries. I'm starting to think that maybe posting the strangest ones in these monthly updates is what's driving the traffic. I can only hope that some of these folks stick around and find something more, er....wholesome to read than what they were looking for:

Query	Rank / # of Results	Comments
500 guys sleeping nude	>500 / 116,000	When 499 guys just isn't enough...
daddie son sex pics	>500 / 2,040,000	Ick. Ick, ick, ick. This guy's a child molester and a poor speller. Ick, ick, ick, ick....
Disney cartoon nude pictures	>500 / 227,000	With all the porn available on the Internet, you'd think this wouldn't be necessary. And yet, 227,000 people seem to disagree...
how to photograph your naked wife	>500 / 117,000	Well, I'd think the first step would be to ask her. Step #2 probably involves staying off the Internet for a while...
my naked wife on facebook	>500 / 929,000	Now, you see? This is what ignoring the rules above leads to...
rate my naked sleeping wife pics	>500 / 1,090,000	...and now we're asking for opinion polls. Stop the madness, people!
nude pic brian is 14	>500 / 234, 000	Oh, ick, ick, ick. A thousand times ick. Who are these people? Ya know what, on second thought, I really don't wanna know...
pictures of gross nude people	>500 / 1,900,000	But if you think they're gross, then why...? Oh, I give up...
pitchers of sex	>500 / 330,000	OK, this is classic. Because you know, if someone ever figured out how to bottle it, bars would be selling it in pitchers by the first weekend...
sleeping breasts	>500 / 775,000	Funny - I never thought of them as sleeping. I'm guessing they'd be quite uncomfortable for the woman when they woke up and tried to stumble to the kitchen for breakfast...
sleeping porn family	258 / 1,930,000	Ah yes, we know the Sleeping Porn family. Husband, Wife, two adorable kids. They sure do spend a lot of time in the house, though...
pictures of how to sleep naked	>500 / 268,000	Whoever came to my site looking for pictures was disappointed, but I think I can provide the proper steps in text: 1) Take off clothes, 2) fall asleep. Any questions?