Keywords

Top five keywords for Our Town according to Google Analytics.

Counting down from number five...


5. our town news st. james

Okay, this makes sense because one of the staff writers is named Larry St. James, and the periodical is called Our Town. St. James is a town in Missouri. Someone just wanted to stay current with the MO's 411. No biggie. Commendable.

4. SCHEZUAN PALACE

This one's digging back into the vaults a bit, but the weirdo kinky sex enthusiast/restaurant reviewer Nancy Pierce had an article where she talked about going to a Chinese restaurant for the first time. The name of the restaurant is Schezuan Palace. Common name for Chinese-American restaurants.

3. sexpo italy

I was confused for a moment, so I did a google search on the phrase. Sure enough it comes from the Nancy. I thought I invented the phrase "sexpo" (goes to show my familiarity with the world of Sex-themed Expos) when I framed an article on butternut squash around Nancy's trip to a "sexpo" in upstate New York. "Italy" appeared in an op-ed by mayoral candidate Stanley Tucci on that same day, thusly the same page. Apparently this was enough to make Our Town the 7th result out of over 18,000 matches. I feel bad that more people are searching for Italian Sexpos than for the mind behind the Big Night.

2. eric mills

Easy enough. One of the writers is named Eric Mills. His mother, the doting Kathy Mills, is also a staffer. Who is Eric Mills you ask? Apparently he's an actor sort based out of Kentucky. Good luck to you, Eric! I glanced at the first two result pages and didn't see a sign of Our Town, so whoever was searching for Eric Mills really wanted to be thorough.

And the number one keyword search for Our Town...

1. Boner for my daughter

(Spits out tomato juice) Pardon? I, uh...what? Let's go to the videotape on this one. Turns out, we have the delightful mind of Chris Sartinsky to thank for this...this. In an A.J. Swish article he wrote about myspace, he crafted the following sentence:

“Hey, little girl,” my message began. “How are you?” She sent me a response offering to “fluff” my “boner,” which my daughter told me is cyber-speak for “look at my page.” I enthusiastically accepted!

Not only is this the number one keyword for Our Town, but it's also the second match on google. Interestingly enough, the first match is another inadvertent combination of "daughter" and "boner." In fact, very few of the matches actually involve what one would assume to be material relevant to these keywords.

I'm not sure how I feel about this. On the one hand, I'm getting lots of hits, but on the other, stickier hand, I seem to drawing the sexual deviant crowd. Shame on them, I say. But then also, shame on me for creating such unintentional (satirical?) smut.

And shame on Chris Sartinsky.