Some of you know I think Chuck Wendig is a rockstar. Great writer, tremendous blogger and funny as hell. Most of you will enjoy his writing advice. Some of my snarkier More Cowbell pals would enjoy his other far-out features like Search Term Bingo, herein known as STB.
Nearly every month, there is an STB post with a catchy title and Chuck’s signature voice (and pornographic language). These blogs might be NSFW but they are always fun. Even on the days when I don’t understand them, I still enjoy them.
Check out some titles:
Auld Lang Search Term Bingo
Search Term Bingo, Starring Johnny Depp as “Pony Boy”
Search Term Bingo And The Revenge Of The Hamster Skin Codpiece
What is Search Term Bingo?
Chuck mines the Internet search term results that refer views to his site. Yep, those strange things people type in to places like Google are visible in the stats for blog clients like WordPress.
Only Chuck would think to build a post around them where most of the sentences contain a search term. I’ve learned to put my coffee cup aside before I read them so I don’t choke.
In Search Term Bingo, crazy words abound, nonsensical facts reign and we learn how wacky the internet is. In fact, the term BTFO (Beard the F–k On) was discovered during a Search Term Bingo post in April, 2011. Besides being a trivia question here at More Cowbell, BTFO now holds a proud place in Wendig culture. It has become an anthem encouraging writers everywhere (it has its own hashtag and everything).
Note: I want a #Cowbell hashtag when I grow up!!!
Sorry, where was I? Ahhh, Master Wendig and his creative blogging ideas (which I am now “borrowing.”) He inspired me to browse my search terms the other day and I realized that, while my terms aren’t half as classic as Chuck’s, they’re still pretty damn funny.
Here were the biggest referrers:
Maxine Cartoon searches are by far the most popular referrers to this site. This makes me smile because they remind me of my mom, who is deceased – my Mother’s Day post is the one that opens for those Maxine Lovers. Go, MOM! You exercise that Heavenly Cowbell and get those peeps to my blog. 🙂
Of course there were lots of Cowbell phrases but the one that made me giggle was “fever cowbell.” Is this disco cowbell, sickly cowbell? Huh.
We had a three-way tie for “fighting,” “pimp” and “yummy snacks.” The following nonsense is what came to my mind when I saw those:
“An eager young editor and a tired old pimp were fighting over Jenny’s manuscript AND her yummy snacks.”
Dang, between the Chocolate Philosophy and STB, I have GOT to get my flash fiction going on soon. Clearly I need an outlet for these sorts of hijinks.
Which leads us to the next batch of popular search terms:
- table dancing
- i shake shake shake your melon dance
- girl with tripple d cups (I also got Triple D women and triple d cup)
Oh my… Those are much more reminiscent of what we see in Master Chuck’s posts. And I want to understand what someone is looking for exactly when they type “i shake shake shake your melon dance” into Google.
Hmmmm…
I can’t wait to see what comes up the next time I play this game. Do you all follow your referrers to see where your blog traffic comes from? Do you have any crazy or surprising terms to share with us? Enquiring minds always want to know at More Cowbell.
Don’t forget, this Friday is Life List Friday! I will be hanging out over at Gene Lempp’s wonderful blog, and the fantastic Violeta Nedkova w/a Lyn Midnight will be sharing the love here at More Cowbell.
See you then!
Jenny
Jenny Hansen's Blog 
Crazy search items.
How and where would I go to find this info?
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Linda, I don’t know if Blogger provides them – I know it gives you links, but I don’t know about the search terms. Let us know. For WordPress, they are in the Site Stats on the bottom left below the graph.
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Note to Jenny in re: your Note to self: Never grow up! How can we help you achieve that #Cowbell goal?
Hopping over to Google. “Pimp Cowbell for yummy snacks of wonky wordplay fighting for #Cowbell hashtag.”
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Gloria, I love it! If you tweet all this wonkiness with #MoreCowbell at the end, that’s we get the party started. We’ll be ready in about 6 months for a whole crowd of us to pile in over there. 🙂
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Setting the record straight. It was a Honeydew melon and the gentleman who recommended I shake, shake, shake it to ensure it was ripe for pickin’ for dessert was a dance instructor. Just so you know…
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Yes, that’s the one you FOUND…I’ll bet the motives on the real searcher were more nefarious!
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Oh I should have guessed those melons were Gloria’s! Luckily I did not spit the coffee out on the keyboard. Shake it away baby!
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I don’t know about you, Jessica, but I’ve come to expect (and treasure) this sort of behavior from Gloria.
I absolutely know she’s join me atop the table to dance the night away at a party!
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Funny, Jenny! Going to check mine now to see if there’s anything half as funny!
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Oh, there were even more, Marcia! I just didn’t want to be greedy on the first round so I limited myself to ten. 🙂
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LMAO. Too funny. I’m not sure Blogger does this but I’ll have to check it out. Great post!
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LOL. Thanks, Stacy! You’ll have to let us know.
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I just discovered these the other day. Here’s some of the more interesting ones:
grandma and grandpa sex
shoes boy wears in fright night movie
hot sex boys sport
sexy ass and dood
pink glitter furniture
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See how individual these are?? I didn’t get any “grandma and grandpa sex!” (Although, I guess in retrospect, that’s a good thing…)
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Love this! Next time I’m at a loss for blog-icity, I’m uncovering the melons…I mean, bingo search. *eg*
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LOL, Amy! I’m telling you, that Wendig is a GENIUS. 🙂
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Your search terms are much more interesting than mine! I get a lot of: Brussels, Belgian Chocolate, English books in Brussels, and other standard ones. I was shocked though to find that someone actually googled “Uni-Verse-City” spelled correctly with correct dashes. I was impressed and curious as to who knows it so well…maybe its my mom. 🙂
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I don’t know, Nicole…Belgian chocolate is pretty exciting over here at More Cowbell. That’s funny about the correct spelling – you have to report back if it was your mom.
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Chuck’s search term bingo cracks me up. That shake shake shake your melon dance could be a lot of fun. 😀
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It definitely sounds like we’d need to employ the Chinese Fortune Cookie trick at the end. 🙂
It’s nice to meet another person that breaks into hysterical laughter over at TerribleMinds.
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Lyn Midnight did a post about this not too long ago that I participated in. It was fun! I do look back to see how people get to my blog, and the craziest term to date was “creepy stencils” – twice! Never once have I typed the combination of those words in a post, as a tag, or in a title. I still have no idea how they found me….google is an interesting place.
Here’s another that is funny – “im so mad that detroit 187 and off the map and scoundrels have been cancelled where can i say how mad i am”
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LMAO off. You could certainly fashion a fun post off “creepy stencils!” That’s funny…I’ve never gotten any long sentences like that. I usually get a word or two. You know, like “devil cowbell” and “table dancing.”
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Fantastic, loved this! You are hilarious. I’ll be back for more!
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Thanks, Neeks! We like to have fun here…thanks for joining in.
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