Are You A Search Term?

Nearly anyone can be found on Google. I suppose that’s why “Google-ability” is actually something that people talk about.

But, even if you do appear in search engines like Google, the question now would be: Is anyone looking for you? As in, do you actually appear as a search term?

One tool I like to use when it comes to studying search terms is Overture’s Keyword Selector. It’s how I gauge whether a word or a phrase is actually being searched by online users or not (and how often).

As a fun experiment, I tried typing some popular names from the blogosphere - the numbers that appear after their name is the number of times their names appeared as a search term last month:

Wil Wheaton - 4275
Seth Godin - 559
Chris Pirillo - 378
Jeff Jarvis - 364
Robert Scoble - 175
Nick Denton - 103
Caterina Fake - 33
Jason Calacanis - 31
Cameron Riley - 31 * updated

I also did a few searches on some familiar names that turned out to have zero search counts, which surprised me a bit.

So, how about you? Are you a search term? How many times did your name get searched last month using Overture’s tool? What’s the point of all this?

No point, really. Unless, of course, you consider your name as part of your “brand”… And, well, if you’re simply interested in these matters, then I’m sure this makes sense.

For the record, I got 59 under ‘Shai Coggins’. How strange. It can’t all be me looking for myself. Hmmm… should I get worried or should I be happy that I’m a search term?
* Update: Misspelled Cameron’s last name. Oops. Sorry about that. :red: With the correct spelling, Cameron Reilly didn’t come up with a specific number. But, there’s 904 for ‘bill cameron o reilly’ — same person? :cheese: