Miscellaneous, etc.

Just about anyone who uses the internet these days knows about Google, just like everyone who used the internet in 1995 knew about Yahoo. It’s the search engine to use, it’s the directory to be linked in, and it’s so pervasive that its moving from a nominative form to a verb. One does not simply visit Google, one Googles. For example:

I Google for recipies all the time.

He Googled up the funniest site the other day.

You were looking for song lyrics? Why didn’t you just Google them?

And so forth. I can remember a time when part of my job was to endlessly submit website URLs to the Yahoo directory — including my own, which I snuck in there from time to time — in order to become part of their listings. Each day and week, I would flood the inboxes of hapless Yahoo category editors, whose job it was to review the sites and choose whether or not to list them. Refusal meant more relenteless submissions, because acceptance meant visibility in an ocean of obscure content.

People surfed Yahoo the way they might surf Fark or MetaFilter now — there were always new links appearing, new reviews of sites to read, new cool places to take a look at. Reading what Yahoo suggested was a whole lot easier than trying to find anything on your own, and unless you were one of those cutting edge souls who subscribed to internet magazines that boasted hundreds of links per issue, then you were really out of luck.

I think that’s why I laughed when I read that Yahoo was partnering with Google to adopt their search engine, and why I laughed even harder when they dumped it again. Searching on Yahoo at the best of times a risky shot — if you didn’t find what you needed from their editorially-approved content, then you were forced to scroll through their endless pages of Geocities search hits. With Google, well, if you didn’t find what you were looking for, you generally found something even more interesting.

My primitive understanding of search engine technology makes me believe that it works something like this:

• Computer guys program software.
• Software crawls through the internet and makes big indices.
• People enter a search against those indices
• Then people find stuff.

The magical property behind Google appears to be through links, which determine both validity and relative importance of the content the search turns up. So, when searching for “jennifer aniston’s nipples”, for example, the engine will locate the most clear reference to the search, and cross-index it against the most relevant entry, based on linkage.

Which leads you to me. But it’s a good search engine anyway. Really!

Because of this, Google has started to branch out into additional offerings, much the way Yahoo did back in the dot.com boom times. Unlike Yahoo, though, Google did not see a logical connection between search engines and, say, selling tee shirts or offering weather forecasts, and has instead opted towards search-related thingmeejobs, such as the intensely useful Google toolbar.

Above: Searching for shocking bestial pornography is easier than ever, thanks to the Google Toolbar — now with blockers for those troublesome pop-ups that get you in deep shit with your Mom, and PageRank to help you determine which sites will provide you with the most pant-loads of entertainment!

Along with the ability to perform Google searches straight from the browser window, block pop-up ads, and perform specialized functions like translations and backward links, the toolbar also provides a little bit of interesting trivia that helps web surfers understand exactly the relevance of the content they’re reading: Google PageRank.

According to Google,

PageRank relies on the uniquely democratic nature of the web by using its vast link structure as an indicator of an individual page’s value. In essence, Google interprets a link from page A to page B as a vote, by page A, for page B. But, Google looks at more than the sheer volume of votes, or links a page receives; it also analyzes the page that casts the vote. Votes cast by pages that are themselves “important” weigh more heavily and help to make other pages “important.”

So, in other words, you are observing the pecking order of the internet every time you click onto a new site. And if you’re anything like me, you’re constantly comparing it to your own ranking. Quite likely with outrage, or at the very least a confused sense of reduced self-esteem.

“Only a 5?” you’re asking yourself. “Out of 10? Is that all I mean to the internet? I’m half-relevant? I’m half-important? Half of the whole internet is more reliable and informative than I am?”

According to Google, yes.

I have grown to accept my own PageRank, and even grown to find some kind of motivation in it. Just as once upon a time my goal was to have more than 50 unique visitors a day, and later on to have more than 10,000 pageviews in a month, so now is my aspiration to one day be even more important to the Internet. Maybe even 6/10 important.

But in order to accomplish that, I had to understand just what the difference was between 5/10 importance and 6/10 importance. Does it have to do with just raw linkage? What is this ambiguous “analysis” that Google refers to when calculating my rank? And as a result of it, which pages are considered more important than mine?

I decided to do some surveying, just to get an idea of the relative relevance of my ranking and go up from there, and hopefully from that learn what it would take to get a promotion in PageRank.

The Heavy Hitters

First, to gain my bearings, I took a quick census of some of the bigger sites at the top of my mind:

Miss Johansen’s 6th Grade Class Presents:

Tips for Searching the Internet

1. The Internet won’t answer opinion questions. No matter how you phrase it, it will not tell you which is the coolest Ninja Turtle.
2. Entering your friend’s names is never wise, especially when accompanied with keywords such as “XXX”, “ass”, “dick” or “pussy.” It may seem funny on the search bar, but no good can come of the results.
3. You will always find porn when you’re not looking for it; you will also find porn when you are looking for it, but never the good stuff.

• Playboy.com: Haven of the most boring, processed online porno you’ll ever find, and hub of the immense multinational enterprise that is the Playboy brand. Google PageRank: 8.
• NBC.com: Homepage of the network giant, the basis of such shows as ER, For Love or Money, Friends and the forty-six Law & Order spin-offs. Google PageRank: 8
• Fox.com: The Simpsons, American Idol, That 70’s Show, and a Google PageRank of 7. I am starting to get confused — time to hit something hardcore like…
• CNN.com: When buildings started exploding on September 11th, this is the website that was crushed by heavy traffic first — for that, it earns a 9. Things are starting to make sense. Now I’m starting to understand the definition of “importance” and “relevance” when it comes to Google’s ranking system. Obviously 9s are reserved for sites of gravity, sites that are synonymous with their subject matter, like CNN is with news, or like…
• The Internet Movie Database: …the IMdB is synonmyous with, uh, movies? Because when you think of movies, you think, “IMdB.com!”? Google says you do, anyway. Just look at your toolbar: 9, right there, in blue and white. Don’t argue, just believe it.

So what have we learned so far about the internetweb pecking order? Apparently news and movies are equally important as each other, assuming you can tell the difference between the two; NBC (along with CBS, in case you were curious) is more important than Fox (whose score was equal to ABC, which makes a certain cosmic sense); and Playboy’s brand of pin-it-up-on-the-garage-wall porn is roughly as important as both of them.

I’m learning some valuable lessons about life here. What if we try…

The Underground Favorites

And by “underground”, of course, I mean “basically everyone by now, but originally only the cool people who went to UGO.com and didn’t look at titty-pictures.” But even if you haven’t heard of them, they’ve probably affected other people you read, and probably comprised at least half the e-mailed “LOLOLOL THIS IS FUNNY CHECK IT!!!!” links that you get in your inbox.

So where do they stand?

• Fark: Kind of like Slashdot except with fewer arguments about Linux and more pictures of breasts, Fark has been the gateway to all kinds of cool websites and discoveries. Like Google, important enough to be defined as a verb (farked (fark’d): to be linked to, and eventually crushed by the traffic from, fark.com) as well as a noun. PageRank: 7
• Penny Arcade: It’s the web-based comic strip that everyone tells you is really cool and funny and not at all like fucking User Friendly, even though it gets the same PageRank, 7, managing to edge…
• X-Entertainment: …which drops down into the 6 spot. I think this is where the reliablilty and relevance elements start to break down for me — against what standard exactly does Google decide whether or not Matt’s articles on large foam Hulk Hands or reviews of Ghoulies movies are trustworthy? How many people have written about Hulk Hands that this kind of thing can be judged? I’m starting to lose faith in this whole thing, especially when…
• Seanbaby: …is ranked a 6. Seanbaby, for God’s sake. Everyone knows who Seanbaby is, even if he doesn’t write any more. Superfriends! Kick to the Groin Comics! Are there more reliable authorities for comics about kicking people in the nuts, or making fun of the Superfriends, or slamming on Nintendo games about going to Church? Or is this where relevance overpowers reliabilty? And is that why…
• Old Man Murray: …also merits a 6? Even though it’s the go-to site about gaming that isn’t really about gaming? Even though it had its own huge logo above the UGO booth at E3 a few years ago? Even though game programmers read it and shudder that there, they might someday also be skewered by their own stupid stupid words? Even though it hasn’t been updated since January 2002, and it’s still got the same rank as Wil Wheaton? Apparently.

Above: Jennifer Garner, star of ABC’s hit show Alias.
Below: Tycho Brahe, star of the internet’s hit cartoon strip, Penny Arcade. According to Google, they are basically the same.

And yet, what have we really learned from this? That a vanity site about Nintento games and Superfriends is only marginally less important to the scheme of the entire internet than Playboy, and that a thrice-weekly online comic strip is just as important as two major television networks.

I don’t know how I should feel about that. Should the guys at Penny Arcade be high-fiving and feeling great about themselves, or should someone from Human Resources at ABC and FOX be going through their Internet Marketing department with a clipboard and a flamethrower? Maybe both, I can’t be sure. But the real question, and certainly yours as well, is how does all of this relate to me? If these relative luminaries rank at 6, who’s down here with me at number 5?

Why, it’s…

The Gorgeous Ladies of On-line Journalling (G.L.O.O.J.)

• Pamie: Has a book deal, she writes for Television Without Pity, she has teeming hordes of loyal fans, and she was even on Beat the Geeks. And Google says she’s a 5.
• Kim: Doesn’t have a book deal, she does write for TWoP, she also has teeming hordes of loyal fans, and I think she was in Time magazine or something. Google says she’s a 5, too.
• Gwen: She does have a book deal, I think she still writes for TWoP, she’s been in newspapers and stuff, and her Google PageRank? Yeah, it’s a 5.
• Blogatron: Does she have a book deal? Or something? I don’t know, but she’s funny and she’s a 5 too, and she’s not even on Damn Hell Ass Kings.
• Sara: Runs Three Way Action, which is basically a portal to every other gorgeous lady of journalling, and at which I believe a few male specimens have been sighted as well. Her forums get 100 bojillion kajillion views a month, people have discussed her on Metafilter, and people who aren’t time travellers from 1995 are actually paying her money to be on her site. And she scores a 5. Her personal website only scores a 4, even though some people pronounce it “Ass-Truck,” and in the right state of mind that’s just plain funny.

Then there’s me. I’m a 5 too. I am two-thirds as important as Playboy, seventy percent as relevant as Penny Arcade, and eight-tenths as reliable as Seanbaby. If you were to have a pie that represented CNN.com, and you were to take away forty-five one-hundredths of that pie, the remaining fifty-five one-hundredths would be what Google thinks of me.

Come to think of it, maybe I’m not as badly off as I thought. I’m right up there with web entrepreneurs, budding writers, and people who are being quoted in national magazines. I’m only slightly behind web personalities whose notoriety dates back to the very dawn of the internet. I’m dwarfed by organizations who really should be dwarfing me, but not so much that I can’t dream of one day equalling them.

And it’s comfortable to always have a mathematical reminder that, when I surf over to Google.com — which is the only 10 I could find — I am not half the site that it is.