Googling Jordan
Maybe it is part of me being an IT/Computer Freak, but I really believe that Google results, their number, and sorting mean something.. I remember a couple of years ago, searching for “Jordan” in Google or any search engine would give some sad results. Michael Jordan, and some other female celebrity with the name “Jordan” would take the first 1-2 pages of results, then you will find pages about Jordan that you want. It seemed to me that those individuals are larger than our country. I try to run some searches every now and then just to examine results.. recent searches for “Jordan” in Google started to show some good results, but still it isn’t what I hope for.
It may sound crazy to give a damn about how does google sort results, but if you understand who google ranks results it won’t sound that crazy. Google have some complex algorithms for Page Ranking. Basically, it depends on 3 simple factors: 1) The number of links to a site from other sites. 2) The thank of the linking sites. 3) Content of the linked site.
Understanding this, it means that people talk more about some celebrity called Jordan than they do about our Jordan. That doesn’t sound good!! Are we that insignificant on the Internet ? or is it that we are insignificant as a country in general ! or maybe people are dull and stupid to talk about and link to celebrities more than they talk about and link to the country of Jordan…
Anyhow, no one can deny that things are getting better in general, after all the Arab sobar s6ar was from Jordan (as if I care)..
Google improved their ranking algorithm based on “semantics” their engine recognizes what words mean, they bought out a company for this reason, their engine is becoming like humans :)
So the content of the site is becoming the most dominant factor.
Damn it! For some time I was number one when you Google for “jameed”…Grrrr; thanks for the “human-like” technology, my blogger profile is now third!!
With the risk of being political, I think the reason why Jordan the country comes behind Jordan the basketball player is a very simple one.
If you take the set of all the Internet’s users as your universe of discourse, what percentage of those users are from the U.S.? Probably more than half. Most of them ardent basketball fans, and, apparently from these Google results, not very interested in georgraphy. :-)
And my guess is the reason Jordan the country has been gaining ground on Jordan the player is because he’s been retired a while and people are talking less and less about him.
So, here’s hoping for less and less celebrities named after countries :-)
have you guys ever tried googling your own names? its fun, try it.
Abdulaziz, It is great to see you reading my blog. Anyhow, I am not sure that the simplification you made is valid. For example there is this celebrity “Paris Hilton” who’s name gives semilar number of results to “Michael Jordan” in google. But searching for “Paris” would not show Paris Hilton in the first 5 pages (I quited after page 5, maybe she is not even mentioned until page 10).. besides, there are many small countries that are known more than Jordan.. Why? Monaco, Jamaica, Costa Rica, and so..
Have You Guys Ever Tried Googling Your Own Names? TRY IT…..
Yea, Im an American, and pretty much everyone here knows who MJ is, and noone gives a shit about Jordan, no offense, but its a pretty insignificant country. There are prolly some ppl who don’t even know it’s a country. Yea, so it’s just insignificant in general, at least to the U.S. which invented the internet, and takes up the majority of the internet, so it’s no surprise our pop culture, which we are so engrossed in, takes up the majority of the internet’s content.