Paris Hilton V. Google’s Vision Statement

I was just looking through our stats earlier, and noticed something interesting.

This blog is all about search engines, and search engine optimization. Among the topics mentioned frequently are of course Google, MSN, Yahoo! – just what you would expect. I also wrote two comments about Hilton’s Perverted Bedding Initiative. I don’t think I could have foreseen all the various queries related to Paris Hilton that we would be getting from the search engines. I knew that Paris Hilton was big. But she’s bigger than Google.

We get lots of traffic for terms like Google’s Vision Statement, Yahoo Strategy, and the like. The overwhleming majority of our traffic related to search engines. But all the Hilton & Paris Hilton related terms are staggering! Here’s a list of some which struck me – (I’ve left out the rude ones):

• Paris Hilton Brand
• Paris Hilton and the relationship to Hilton Hotels
• Hilton Blog
• Paris Hilton Blog
• Hilton Bedding
• Hilton Hotel commission
• Hilton Hotel in Paris
• hilton hotel gossip
• hilton brand
• hilton hotels
• hilton brand
• hilton hotel brand
• hilton brand awareness
• paris hilton brand awareness

By comparison, here are a few from the Google list which were unexpected (sorry, no rude ones here!)

• microsoft good google evil
• microsoft evil google good
• google do no evil
• google brand awareness
• google’s sandbox
• google-imagery
• schmidt privacy
• google vision statement
• google’s vision statement
• google’s brand

It’s interesting to note how people search for Google, Hilton, and Paris Hilton & brand awareness. The total number of queries for each of those terms was remarkably similar.

Some of the odder queries I’ve seen this month?

• playmate search engine
• 2
• 8
• perverted
• gfe in [insert city name]
  - which I have learned is not just the naming convention for many new Google datacenters, but is much, much more popularly used by people searching for, or describing as encounter with an escort as a “girlfriend experience” Learn something new everyday.

That one had me stumped! Why were we getting traffic for terms like “gfe in Vancouver”, “GFE in NYC”, “GFE in LA”, and ironically, “gfe in hilton head”?

The number of queries for those terms twigged my attention. But queries like “What is gfe service?” and “gfe stands for?” made me realize that GFE was a very commonly used acronym. So I started searching for the meaning of GFE myself!

I guess that my ignorance shows we don’t do much / any business with the adult industry(!)

So what have I learned? Looking at the stats, people crave information about Google and Paris Hilton, but they are also actively looking for Hilton Hotel related information, and surprisingly enough, PORN!