I think it’s fair to say that inter­net search engines have changed how many of us explore social and reli­gious move­ments. There is now easy access to infor­ma­tion on won­der­ful­ly quirky sub­jects. Let the Super­bowl view­ers have their over­pro­duced com­mer­cials and cal­cu­lat­ed con­tro­ver­sy: the net gen­er­a­tion does­n’t need them. TV view­er­ship among young adults is drop­ping rapid­ly. Peo­ple with web­sites and blogs are shar­ing their sto­ries and the search engines are find­ing them. Here is a taste of the search phras­es peo­ple are using to find Mar­tin Kel­ley Quak­er Ranter.

A lot of the search phras­es are pre­dictable for any­one who reads my blog enough: “mod­ern lib­er­al Quakers”:google, “Quak­er peace testimony”:google, “Quak­er decline”:google, “Quak­er theology”:google, “emer­gent church movement”:google and “catholic Quakers”:google. By far the most pop­u­lar search­es are for the plain dress page. Every day I get search­es for “mod­est dresses”:google, “plain dress”:google, “Quak­er dress”:google, etc. Most Quak­ers might have long ago dis­missed pecu­liar­i­ties like plain dress as rel­ic of the nine­teenth cen­tu­ry, but a lot of twenty-first cen­tu­ry net surfers are curi­ous about this tra­di­tion of ours.
Some­times I get search traf­fic that is down­right bizarre. Who search­es for “Its light that makes me uncomfortable?”:google (I like it; the Light spo­ken of by Friends is one that expos­es and con­victs before it com­forts). “I’m going to hire a wino to dec­o­rate our home”:google is not a tac­tic I’ve ever con­sid­ered (thanks Melyn­da). I’m appar­ent­ly a world expert in “inse­cu­ri­ties of young peo­ple from fash­ion modeling.”:google And if you want to know if “armaged­don [is] gods way of get­ting rid of human race”:google I’m the guy to talk to. My Luther­an grand­moth­er will rest eas­i­er in her grave know­ing that I’m an impor­tant fig­ure for “chris­t­ian young adults”:google and a lead­ing voice on “moral­i­ty in twen­ty somethings”:google, but if all this right­eous­ness gets to you I can also show you how to “beat a dead horse”:google.
More in the bizarro “why me?!” file: “baby arm picture”:google, “hand wash experiments”:google, “lib­er­al protes­tantism and safe sex”:google, “unused cell phone numbers”:google. I’m not sure who thinks I know any­thing about the “stat­ue of lib­er­ty hold­ing a guitar”:google. “Do amish women wear bras”:google?: I don’t know.
Some of the phras­es are so gener­ic that I mar­vel that they point here. Are there real­ly so few sites talk­ing about “twenty-somethings”:google, even gener­i­cal­ly? Should­n’t there be lots of main­line Protes­tants wor­ried about their declin­ing num­bers and ask­ing “why are church­es dying”:google. There ain’t much move­ment to the “emer­gent church movement”:google if I’m the num­ber one hit. I’d be hap­py to guide visiors to “gay chris­t­ian websites”:google but I’m hard­ly an expert (or does Google know some­thing about me that I don’t?). I’ve nev­er been asked to give any major “Quak­er speech­es for peace”:google even though Google seems to think it’s about time; if you want lighter fare for your con­fer­ence, I can also give a pre­sen­ta­tion on “fun things to to do with your Quaker”:google.
For the record: I have nev­er met “mel gib­son’s wife”:google, though I do know “Theo‘s mom”:google quite inti­mate­ly, hav­ing been “mar­ried in south jersey”:google (want proof? How about some “baby Quak­er pictures”:google ?). I don’t run “the social net­work for gorillas”:google but if I did it stands to rea­son I’d be some­thing of an author­i­ty on the “the­ol­o­gy of the plan­et of the apes”:google. If I knew “where thriv­ing young adults can be successful”:google, do you think I’d be work­ing for non­prof­its?? I’m also afraid I don’t have much advice on “how to flat­ten new sod”:google. I do agree that “there were no good old days, these are the good old days”:google.
Final­ly, my favorite search phrase: “baby theo”:google. I have at least one Friend that uses this search phrase instead of book­mark­ing my site (he com­plained when my Baby Theo page tem­porar­i­ly fell out of first place).

h4. Method­ol­o­gy
bq. The linked words in this post are a sam­ple of actu­al phras­es that have brought actu­al vis­i­tors to my site from search engines. All of the links are to Google, the most commonly-used search engine, but some of these vis­i­tors used oth­er search engines to find my site (which is why I won’t nec­es­sar­i­ly come up when you click the Google link).
h4. Updates
* “How crazy am I survey”“http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&safe=active&q=HOW%20CRAZY%20AM%20I%20SURVEY (9/2006)