Something every web page author does from time to time is look for her or his web site on various search engines. If you've managed to find this site, congratulations! If you reached this site via a search engine, I'd like to know which one. I searched various search engines using the key word "CherylSoft" (which I thought should be unique to this site) and came up with some interesting - though often inaccurate - results. Take this document as a general indication of how good search engines are these days. After all, who wants to be searching when you can be finding? I checked several sites to see how many total results they gave and how many of them were accurate.
Total Results: 7 Accurate: 0
The results from this site were so baffling that they inspired me to create this page in the first place. Seven results were given, none of them correct. One of them was for a now-defunct page at Geocities which listed members who had written articles on flatbed scanners. The other six were pornospam, or pages that list nothing but every word possible that has some relation to women, and I mean every word. Search for "Anne Bolyn" or "teeth" and you would end up on one of these pages. What disturbed me was the words they used on these pages - they had the terms "CherylSoft computing cravings" all in a row, which happens to be the name of one of the pages on this site. How they harvested that one, I have absolutely no idea. Why not read it for youself and see what it has to do with sex. Answer: not much!! But anyway, Northern Light is full of pornospam. Don't send the kids looking there.
Total Results: 0
Nothing there, but they did offer discounts on books about CherylSoft. Hmm, I'd love to see what books have been written about this site!
Total Results: 2 Accurate: 2
Linked to the main page and to an old article about the BeOS.
Total Results: 2 Accurate: 2
Links to the same pages as Excite. Has someone been looking off someone else's paper?
Total Results: 1 Accurate: 1
Link to the main page.
Total Results: 2 Accurate: 1
You'd think that since Yahoo! owned Geocities, the results would be better. One link to the main page and one pornospam.
Total Results: 0
Total Results: 1 Accurate: 1
Link to the computing page, but curiously not to the main page.
Total Results: 1 Accurate: 1
Links to the main page.
Total Results: 38 Accurate: 38
Now that's a pretty good record! Of course, one would have to know that this site is within GeoCities' domain in order to find things, but it's nice to know they keep track of who's got what on their site. Gee, I didn't even know I had that many pages!
Try it yourself! If you've got a web page with a unique name, try finding it using several search engines. Check for defunct links. Watch out for pornospam. It'll give you a good idea which engine you should be using for your regular searching (you know, when you don't really know what's out there).