Every now and then, in my drive to make this site better and get more people to visit, I delve into the world of analytics to see how I’m doing. It’s good to know how often my site shows up in search results, and even more useful to know what people are searching for that sends them my way.

That’s where Google Webmaster Tools come in. Basically, they let me see what people searched for and the average position my site holds in the results. Pretty snazzy stuff, really.

Some searches, like “Brian Benoit,” were perfectly rational to find in my list (my average position is 8.5, though I swear I’d be first if The Dillinger Escape Plan had never existed) – but what about the others?

Here are some of my favorite searches:

Turtle Mustache

I’m extremely pleased that this is on the list. Both words make me laugh; taken together, they’re a killer combination, and as it turns out, I’ve referenced both turtles and mustaches with strange regularity in my posts. Most recently there was “Pietro Barbino,” where a naked dwarf (more on nudity later!) rides on a turtle.

Fat Girls In Bikinis

I honestly have no idea how this one applies to me. One post, my first Five Sentence Fiction offering, involved bikinis, but never have I ever put them on fat girls in my stories. Now that I know it’s a popular search, though…

Full Frontal Nudity / Public Nudity / Naked Dwarf

Nudity shows up so often in my searches that it was impossible to choose just one — so I chose some of my favorites and lumped them all together! I’m not saying I never mention nudity in my posts — boy, do I ever! — but it just confirms what we already knew: people need to bookmark their pornography so they don’t have to keep searching for it. (Seriously, naked dwarf? That sounds like a specialty website if ever there was one).

Puddin Pop

This one goes way back to my post on rewriting history, which, interestingly enough, also involved mustaches and turtles…

Where Is Your God Now Spider

I like to read this as “Where is your God NOW, spider?” because it comforts me to know that my website is enjoyed by crazy people who believe they can speak with insects via Google search (you know who you are).

Push-Ups

This actually isn’t a strange search, really– I am, after all, world renowned for my physical fitness and expertise in upper body exercises.

Google doesn’t believe it, though: my average position in results for this search is 960^th. (Then again, maybe they meant push-up bras?)

The point of all this is that analytics don’t have to be boring, they can be fun (and very, very, almost disturbingly informative…) All you have to do is set yourself up with Webmaster Tools or Analytics and you’re on your way to serious self discovery.