One unexpected result of having a website is learning that people google my name a few times each week.
Since my website's stat counter shows what people searched for if they came into my site from a search engine, I'm able to see that more than I would have imagined people google my name.
Although I've kept some sort of blog for over the past 10 years and nearly all of those had a stat counter on them, I very rarely received hits from people having searched my name. Probably because my blogs didn't have my name in the Url or mention my name within posts. But now that I have a website with my name as the URL, it is the first result when searching my name.
Of course, most of these searches for my name are probably not for ME. As I have learned from Google, but particularly facebook,there are many Christopher Allman's in the world. One has written a book, one make Christian music, and there are a few lawyers and businessmen. I'm sure that most of them, like everyone else, has friends, admirers, co-workers, bosses and potential bosses and their own selves etc. who occasionally do a Google for their name and would probably click on the the site named after the person they are searching for.
Out of all the hits to my site that come from searches for my name, I would guess that a small minority of them are people actually searching for me. This took me a little while to realize though. Initially I was amazed and excited that people from all over the country and England were regularly searching my name. I was kind of disappointed once it dawned on me that that probably wasn't the case. I would be fascinated to find out which ones really are searching for me and who they are and what their motives were. Occasionally an additional word or phrase is added to the search like 'Seattle' or 'Paintings' that make me think it likely was referring to me. Those really pique my interest and I will search my facebook for everyone I know in the city where the search originated. Rarely will I have even a guess who made the search. I wonder if many other people with self titled blogs and websites do similar things. My guess would be that this type of curiosity is fairly common. If the popularity of those fake 'find out who searched your name' facebook applications are any indication, it seems like many of us are interested in learning what people have the, usually, very mild interest required to seek out and look at our internet presence. But that is just speculation. I wouldn't be surprised if it were not so.
I would imagine that as time goes on most of these Christopher Allman's will again Google their names and come across my website, assuming another Christopher Allman doesn't achieve even a small level of fame and push my site from the top results. Even then, several might try entering my URL just to see if there is a site using their name.
I like to think of myself as a legend among other people named Christopher Allman. If we were all to get together somehow, I would be the one many would recognize as being the first search result for our common name. And since I am a legend among them, they would be raising me into the air on their shoulders and trying to touch the hem of my clothes to be healed, which of course I would let them do and would totally cure all their ailments.
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