Four years ago, I wrote about the unusual, odd and funny search engine entries that – often mystifyingly – lead visitors to my blog (see – ‘Anxious Hog‘). Hot on the heels of that post, here’s a few more search words and phrases that made me smile, raise an eyebrow or grimace.
Her fantastic calves
I felt a bit sorry for the thrill seekers who on typing “a glimpse of petticoats video” or “her fantastic calves” or “naughty pic of victorian lords and ladies” ended up here. But they were probably sorrier than I.
Long tailed tits
I felt less sorry for others. I have written often about bird life in the garden and regularly featured photographs of various tits. No real surprise then that I am the ultimate destination for hordes of panters who arrive, dishevelled, expecting something else entirely.
Grey Heron and not a fat wood pigeon
Feverishly seeking “photo of fat wood pigeons and bums” however is just plain weird.
A lion full stop
Animal searches are common too including: “lamb nostril” (oh…kaaay), “hippo bum” (what is it with bums, people?), “fox holding a daffodil” (not too specific then), “lion defecates” (I honestly have no idea), “cuckoo penis” (hand up. I have used those two words)
and an insatiable appetite for cows sporting nose rings. “Cow in shed at home” on the other hand is rather sweet and suggests a log fire, slippers, a pipe and the newspaper.
Man with gunnera. (Image from heligan.com)
“Can you split a gunnera” is often asked but “how would you know if you got gunnera” is not and I hope they weren’t seeking treatment tips. My gunnera advice of cutting back in winter and protecting from frost will have alarmed any gonorrhea sufferer.
I am surprised by how often variations on “do cows eat asparagus” appear. A while ago, I wrote that a herd of cows broke into The Priory to wreak havoc and raid the asparagus patch. I hardly think it’s a common gardening nuisance but perhaps it is. Be on your guard. And also ensure your cow identifying skills are as good as this fellow’s – “that’s not a cow that’s an asparagus“. I’m relieved someone’s up to speed and would know to raise the alarm if he sees a “cow eating grass cutter machine“. That’s one scary cow.
Pachyphytum oviferum
I am so very disappointed with all my haemorrhoid queries. I once – ONCE! – called Pachyphytum oviferum the haemorrhoid plant so why, oh why do I get so many haemorrhoid searches? I can just about cope (so to speak) with “tiny haemorrhoid” but “haemorrhoid popped” weren’t words I wanted in my brain. Maybe the same unfortunate also typed in “haemorrhoids simply disappeared“. We can but pray.
Margaret’s new born
Here’s a phrase I longed to recite solemnly to my farmer friend, Margaret (she of the asparagus eating cattle) – “lowly is the woman with a calf” but actually I chickened out. She can throw a stern look. “Looking back with regret with a magnifying glass” is sadly wistful (but I also wanted to roll my eyes, pat their shoulder and suggest it might be time to move on). Whereas “water nuisance, annoyance, harassment yorkshire” frustrated me for not knowing more about water harassment. Especially in Yorkshire. “Why are there grass snakes in my driveway” is an imponderable but personally I’d be thrilled. I’m puzzled that “alien facehugger” links to me and equally puzzled, if irritated, by the incomplete “spotted at Singapore botanical garden a bright green snake as thin as my little finger but very …”. Very what? Argumentative? Vain? I shall never know. Another annoyingly hanging phrase was “anxious gardener big …”. But big what for goodness sake? Nose? Buffoon? Oh wait. Sigh. Statistically it’s probably bum.
There are some word combinations that I can sort of understand leading to me. Sort of. “Stacy snake jim slip” is confusing but I do have a friend called Stacy, I have written about snakes and my partner is Jim. But he doesn’t wear a slip (to my knowledge). So I sort of understand (but not really).
Amur leopard
I did post this photo of a critically endangered leopard and can see that “Amur leopard staring into extinction” might lead to the AG. But why “kidney leave a reply“, “why is my burd humming” and “toad lord“?
Canada goose
Some are proclamations: “i’m not an anorak, i’m a bird watcher” (trust me pal, they are not mutually exclusive), “no trees are too high for me” (that’s nice, dear), “you know … sheesh” (er, ‘fraid not) and “I’m just a gardener” (nowt wrong with that).
Nerine bowdenii (I don’t have a photo of a soup flask)
Possibly the most curious search only appeared once and I longed for the background story but also wondered why on earth it was typed and not simply screamed across the neighbour’s hedge, whilst gesticulating madly – “You can av that soup flask I left in your garden sucker“.
That told them.
The Anxious Gardener 
I also keep a list although haven’t quite written that blog post yet. My favourite two are ‘low maintenance garden design with spiral topiary’ and ‘can i give my daphanie plant a cup of tea’.
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Look forward to the post, Janna. My biggest search term, by far, is pale tussock moth – and variations. I did a little post a couple of years ago and promptly forgot all about it. But is is easily the most viewed post I’ve ever published. Easily. Odd isn’t it? Which posts ranks high on Google and which don’t figure at all. D
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I guess not many people have written about the pale tussock moth and an extraordinarily large number of people want to read about them! In fact I’ll need to read it now…
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Guilty m’ lud. ‘Fat wood pigeon and bums’ was probably me.
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year Mr Anxoius x
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Ha! I knew as much Jane but didn’t like to cast nasturtiums. Happy Christmas and all that to you too. Dx
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Hee hee hee… I left reading your post till a time I needed some jollying up (6am Sunday morning seemed appropriate). Thank you for the giggle. With such few posts I seem to have only ‘no search results recorded’ kind of thing but my Hot Tub post was definitely one of the most popular so far. Hmmmm, I wonder why?
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6 am is my logging on time too, Caro. Glad to have been of service, Dave
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Pretty funny.
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Good! D
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I love the weird and wonderful search terms that wend their way to Veg Plotting. They’ve been great for spoof Gardeners’ Question Time posts from time to time. My favourites are “Where is Monty Don” (at the time when he’d disappeared for a while and spookily my friend had seen him a couple of days before at a Bob Dylan concert), “if I put a load of fag ends in water can I make a weedkiller” and “I want to go to the Isle of Wight on Monday, where do I go and what time is the ferry”. Some of yours are corkers, especially ‘anxious gardener big…” 😉
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You’re the first here to also mine the seam, Michelle. I’ve not seen your GQT posts – I’ll look out for them. I could do with a chuckle. And I now know where to come when planning my Isle of Wight trip. D p.s. Where is Monty Don?
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Funny searches! I’ve not had a look at mine for a while; have you noticed how there can be quite a few searching for the same thing, totally unrelated in any way to your blog? Still fun though.
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Absolutely, Tom. Haemorrhoids springs to mind! D
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Excellent! Chuckling away I went straight to my site to look for search terms. Today – “quince tree blossom” – boring. Amelia
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Sometimes a nice prosaic search term is all one can handle, Amelia. Count yourself lucky. Apart from the blog name, easily my most common is “pale tussock moth” – pretty boring too. Dave
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I don’t get many interesting search terms, how disappointing.
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I almost envy you, Helen. My 15 year old and I were snorting over some of the more outrageous (unpublished) ones. There was one in particular that he begged me to include – I demurred. D
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That was so, so funny! Mostly weird, but still funny. I can’t see many search terms in WordPress. They did come up with some excuse about privacy laws preventing them showing them. I get about 50 out of 1500 and they are all pretty boring. The rest are classed as unknown search terms.
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Yep, that was a change in privacy ‘laws’ I understand (see my reply to Rusty). The search terms info certainly isn’t as rewarding as it used to be and many of the terms above are a few years old. I tried putting a few of the older ones into Google but couldn’t now find any link to me. Write some posts about garden birds, Annette – that might liven things up! D
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I had one hopeful looking for Diana 36C
Mine is Centigrade.
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Ha! I wonder whether he (or perhaps she) is still looking. What I really miss is the opportunity to reply to these people. D
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Maybe your next give-away should be a competition for who can get to your site using the most outlandish search term (entries via social media supported by screen grabs). Must dash now to check my search engine results. Must confess I’ve never thought of looking at them!
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Go have a look, John. But I don’t want to hear any SMUT. (Got quite enough of that on my site). D
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Here I sit on a cold winter’s night before an open fire, reading the latest post from one of my favourite bloggers. In the background Nina Simone laments ‘who knows where the time goes’. Where have the last 12 months gone ? Thanks for yet another interesting offering David. Looking forward to more in 2016. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year x
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Thanks Lyn and a very merry Christmas to you too. I’m also a big sucker for a bit of Nina (and a log fire, obvs). I once had tickets to see her perform but, perhaps unsurprisingly given Nina, she cancelled at the last moment. I could forgive her that but sadly never had the opportunity again. D
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Very witty and well-observed. Where do you see the search information?
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Hi Susan, thank you. I’ve just had a quick look at your site and saw that you’re too with WP. Have a read of my reply to Rusty below for info on how to access the search terms. I hope you don’t blush too much (but perhaps that is just my site). Dave
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Marvellous. I love the ‘gunnera’.
I’ve been desperately trying to remember some of mine although several have tickled me at the time (no connection with the above). There’s only one thing for it, I shall have to start noting them down.
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Thanks. I have written some of the more ‘interesting’ search words down (I have a whole dedicated spreadsheet!) but if you go into the new WP stats page (but I actually much prefer the old one), click on years, scroll down to search terms and click on view all, it gives a pretty comprehensive list. But! Google and others are far more restrictive now in what info they give to WP and so many of the search terms aren’t provided any more and simply counted as unknown. I welcome the privacy issues that made them do this but I do miss the comprehensive reports of what brought people to my blog. There were some very outrageous and very rude searches which, sadly, I didn’t feel able to publish. Dave
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