Who Keeps Google'ing My Name?

When running a website, you get natural organic traffic from search engines. The search engines have spiders that crawl the entire web and catalog everything so that when people search for keywords they can get the best, most relevant page to their search. Naturally some of the things that people search for are a little weird. I always like to see where my traffic is coming from, so I use programs like Google Analytics and even the built in logging functions for different web servers and applications. I have been running web sites for over 6 years now and I've seen all kinds of keywords that people search for. Some of them I want to be listed for, while others are pure surprises. Some of them are just downright weird. But lately, since I've started this particular blog under my own name, I get traffic from search results for all kinds of keywords. It's a little strange when I see people constantly searching for my name, as well as my name along with some weird keyword. The latest one that I couldn't figure out is "Jared Connell needs money". Well I like money, and I guess you go as far as to say that I need money - just as everybody in this world needs money to live. But why the hell would someone be searching for that? Who is so interested in my financial situation that they would go to Google and search for that? I can't figure this one out. I can see who searches for what and I can even narrow the results down to geographical location via their IP. But I can't go so far as to see the name of the people sitting in front of the computer typing the keywords into the search engines, so I'm a little baffled as to who would search for this term. So whoever you are out there, why not leave me a comment below or send me an email or something. Heck, drop me a line of Facebook if you want. Or even Twitter. It doesn't matter, I just want to know who it is and what they want to know about me. I'm not very secretive, but I would like to know who is that interested in me. Heck, maybe it is another Jared Connell that they are looking for. I think there are about 7 of us in the country with the same name. So maybe I'm the wrong Jared Connell, maybe I am the right one. Whatever the case, I would like to know why you are searching for my name so often, and if you are finding out what you want to know. If not, just tell me and I'll tell you firsthand. No need to lurch behind the computer monitor, just drop me a line! If you have the time to search for Jared Connell on Google then surely you have the time to write a simple blog comment or to message me.

How Fast Things Change and Information Spreads With Technology Nowadays

Back about 100 or 200 years ago, information used to take days, weeks, or even months to spread. The Pony Express was a revolution in the speed of mail and still that was incredibly slow compared to today's standards. Then inventions like the telegraph and then the telephone changed the world. Instead of waiting months for people to get across the country on horses to bring mail, bits of information could take literally seconds to travel the entire world. With the instantaneous manner of the internet, news can spread to millions all over the country and world within hours.

What made me think of this is today I heard something on the news that I wanted to see on the internet. The news was talking about something that happened on one of the late night talk shows. So I go on google, type a few words in and bam there was the video I wanted. Later I wanted to show somebody this video so I went back to google, the search term that I used earlier was still in the search history so I started typing and it auto-completely filled in the rest with the same exact term I used earlier. But the second time the entire search engine results page was different. The site that I saw the video on earlier didn't show up on the first page so I clicked another link. It just happened to be that the link was to a video on bing, funny since I was using google. But it just goes to show that everything changes these days. As a web developer who is also familiar with web marketing, I know it can take months or years to get onto a good spot on google. To know that you can be blown out of the water by competing pages just because something happened on TV or something similar is pretty scary. Why go through the work of making good content that people want to link to and getting the word out by good promotion when you can be knocked out of position within a matter of hours. Companies that have a decent SEO operation might have statistics run every month or so. In this time so much could happen online and in the world that you wouldn't even know what happened and you could go from rank 1 to 100. Well that is why it is important to have very good content and great marketing so you can try to stay relevant no matter what happens. And also don't ever put all your eggs in one basket otherwise you could lose everything you have going on before you ever knew what hit you.

Meaning of the Name Jared

I was watching a TV show and they were talking about the meaning of their names and it got me wondering. My parent's never told me anything about the meaning of my name, except that my dad had known some kid that he met at a pizza place that was named Jared or something like that. It makes sense because I love pizza now - its one of my favorite foods and I love pizzerias. In fact I would love to own and operate a pizzeria in the future, its one of my future goals. I would love to be able to have a great slice of pie whenever I feel like it. My city doesn't have any great pizza places, so I would love to be able to show the people of my town what they are missing.

Anyways, I looked up what my name means and here is what I found out: My name is a variant of the Hebrew name Yared. In the Biblical Book of Genesis, Jared was the sixth link between Adam and Noah; he was the son of Mahalaleel and the father of Enoch. He also lived 962 years. Another spelling is Yared who is the grandfather of Methuselah. My name could also be a variant of the name Yered which is another name for Moses. But what I wanted to know was the meaning of my name. Apparently Jared means "To descend", "descendant", "he who descended", or even "he who shall rule". In the Book of Enoch it is explained that Mahalaleel named Jared because during his lifetime the angels of the Lord descended to earth. I guess I'm the descendant of someone or something. Of whom I am not sure, but maybe in the future it will make more sense to me. Or perhaps angels are going to descend in my lifetime or something like that. Or maybe I am supposed to be a ruler of something in the future. Hmm, that sounds interesting... I like the last one the best. Being a ruler doesn't sound too bad to me.

I got the info from this site: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jared and this page on wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jared.

My New Software Development Site For Jared Connell Software

I just put together a site for my software development endeavors. You can visit my new software development homepage at: jared-connell-software.webs.com. Right now there isn't much to it, but I will update it as soon as I compile some programs to put on the site for download. I have a few apps that I am working on so I can finish them up and compile them into executable form so you can download them. Please visit the site and check back often. I appreciate all your support. I take comments, request, advice, and any thing else you want to tell me, so just drop me a message and I'll get back to you. If you have any feature requests or bug reports please let me know also. Thanks!

Please visit jared-connell-software.webs.com for all my current and future software development projects.

Columbus Day - Should We Still Celebrate?

Columbus Day - the second Monday of October - is a very controversial subject.  I am not really on either side of the issue when it comes to this holiday, but I do understand why people think and feel how they do about it.  On one hand, Mr. Columbus inadvertently put into motion the events that would create what many people consider to be the greatest nation on Earth.  Although Christopher Columbus wasn't the first person in the world to step foot on the North America continent, he did teach the Eastern world a lot of things.  For one thing, he proved that the world was not, in fact, flat.  Although this seems monumentally stupid that people would ever think this, it was the normal way of thinking at the time and he eventually proved that the world was a sphere and not a cube or flat plane.

However, Chris Columbus also caused countless people to be hurt and killed throughout the years after his so-called discovery.  In fact, the Europeans that came over and started to inhabit what is now known as North America pretty much ruined the entire continent for people who were already over here.  Not only did the Euros rip off the Native Americans and eventually steal all their land, but they didn't seem to care at all about the lives of those who lived in this vast land.  Especially after we know how large the United States and North America as a whole turned out to be, it seems like we could have all learned to live in peace and help each other out instead of mostly killing off the Native Americans across the US.

So should we still celebrate this holiday like we do Independence Day and President's Day?  Well if you live in my state, then that question isn't as easy as it is for most other people.  That is because Nevada does not officially celebrate the holiday at all - most state offices don't take the day off or celebrate Columbus Day at all.  However many government offices still do take the day off and it causes havoc all around.  I wish the state would just make up their mind whether to take the day off or not.  I have been inconvenienced personally today and this week in general in a way that I wish could have been averted.  But, since this is still a federal holiday and therefore such services as mail delivery has been stopped while other things such as my local library was open.  So I could go check out a book on Columbus but not get my daily mail delivery.

Anyways, what are your ideas on the subject?  Should we continue to celebrate Columbus Day?  Or does Nevada have the right idea?  Let me know in the comments section of this page.  Thanks and Happy Columbus Day!

Hello World

Hi Everybody!  Welcome to my new blog.  As is customary in the computer world, I will start with the standard Hello World post.  Basically I will use this blog to share my thoughts with the world, on subjects ranging from technology topics including gadgets and SEO/Internet Marketing, to supercars fine (and not so fine) dining, and much more.  In short, whatever is on my mind.  So without further adieu I shall begin with my first post. (As soon as I can think of what to post about.)