Google Search Finds

Around June 21, I did a search for my writing name in quote marks to see what would show up and how often. (A search for my everyday name without quotes would be interesting to chart as well, though I'd have to limit the data to the first ten pages or so, since the names are so common as to give an huge number of returns. Something tells me the first folks on there would be Jon Davies the weatherman and Jon Davies the anthropologist. I think I show up somewhere down between number 10 and 30 on some social network, which rather surprises me, since there's not much reason to include me there.)

Anyway, here's how the breakdown appears:
Or to put it in another way (as a percentage):
My name is most connected to a story that appeared in Stymie magazine. I find that interesting because it's not an easy story to get to, but Stymie, a literary magazine on sports, apparently is well connected to various sporting sites, and so my name is now connected to sites wherein you can buy basketballs and jock straps, which is certainly what I think of when I think of me.

What I find most interesting is how some journals really do a great job of getting their name out in search results. Bull, for instance, which published "The Heart Is a Strong Instrument," tweets new stories, blogs about them, Facebooks them, and so on, so that the story isn't just being hit up at its site but at all these companion sites. "The Next Superstar," which appeared in Battered Suitcase, is also listed a lot because the folks at the Suitcase cross-publish the magazine not just in html on their site but in various e-book platforms like Smashwords and as a print-on-demand journal.

I don't tweet, and I don't really use Facebook effectively, so my own site lingers somewhat down in the pile comparatively (though it comes up on the first page, probably because so many of my author bios point to my main site). My reading blog, Short Story Reader, however, has gotten attention in numerous places and so shows up pretty high up on the number of links Google finds. There again, it's more the work of others drawing attention to it than my own work of tweeting or Facebooking about it.

Anyway, if I were to ever start an online literary journal, I think the charts above might be a useful tool with regard to how to publicize the material in the journal--namely, make it available in lots of platforms.