I worked with Johnson-Eilola's first activity on 230-231. I used Google, Yahoo, and Ask as my search engines and ran "Pelagic Sea Slug," "Zimbabwe," and "Blood Pudding" as my terms. The results were fairly predictable. The Pelagic Sea Slug, being the weirdest entry, received the fewest hits -- and most of those had to do with either how weird the creature is or scientific appraisals of its nature. The only sponsored link that popped up for the slug was completely non-slug-related -- a banner for "Pelagic Clothing." Zimbabwe got tons of hits -- way more via Google than either of the other two engines. Google also had the least "discount airfare" propaganda on the margins. Most of the Google ads were at least superficially humanitarian in nature; Yahoo and Ask were almost exclusively airfare ad related (with a few ads for random goods such as Zimbabwe flags, etc.). Blood pudding received more hits than the slug, but fewer than Zimbabwe. There were no sponsored ads on either Google or Ask for blood pudding . . . for obvious reasons. The only sponsored link for the horrid sausage-mess came from Yahoo -- and it had to do with FDA regulations for the sale of puddings in general inside the U.S.
The moral seems to be that searching for a slug will result in a clothing line; only the FDA is interested in blood pudding; and Zimbabwe is interesting primarily as either an object of humanitarian aid, a financial investment, or a flight destination -- depending on your angle.
Google
Pelagic Sea Slug
1.) 91,600 hits
2.) A mix of “wow what a weird creature” links and academic sites
3.) All related to the creature itself, except one sponsored ad for Pelagic Clothing
4.) The link for Pelagic Clothing was the only odd entry
1.) 120,000,000 hits
2.) News, encyclopedia entries, CIA database, BBC articles
3.) The sponsored ads ranged from “save the children” to “discount flights”
4.) The entries were connected only by the bizarre laws of capitalism
Blood Pudding
1.) 1,290,000 hits
2.) Wikipedia, recipe sites, sites relating to “blood sausage” for some reason
3.) All hits were food-related; there were no sponsored links for blood pudding
4.) The blood sausage links seem random, but it turns out blood pudding and blood sausage are the same thing
Yahoo
Pelagic Sea Slug
1.) 79,500 hits
2.) Similar to Google results, all sea slug related, mix of awe and science
3.) The non-sponsored links were all pelagic sea slug related
4.) There were 2 sponsored links that were selling “sea slug” in general
1.) 73,200,000 hits
2.) All
3.) All links were related to
4.) The sponsored links on Yahoo didn’t have any of the “feed the hungry” or “save the children” links that were on Google; they were all replaced with financial news and discount airfares (and a site selling the
Blood Pudding
1.) 1,480,000 hits
2.) Same mix of recipes, facts, forums and . . . sausages
3.) All hits were food related
4.) The sponsored link had to do with FDA regulations for selling pudding in the
Ask
Pelagic Sea Slug
1.) 1,490 hits
2.) A mix of pelagic sea slug pages and just general info about sea slugs
3.) All hits were slug related, but fewer related directly to the Pelagic Sea Slug
4.) The sponsored link for Pelagic Clothing showed up again
1.) 7,314,000 hits
2.) Mostly
3.) Most hits were directly
4.) Several links to popular magazines like the Economist seem mildly unrelated, plenty of gaudy discount airfare advertisements
Blood Pudding
1.) 435,000 hits
2.) Mix of recipes, facts, histories and pages expressing awe and disgust
3.) All hits were food related
4.) Once again, no sponsored links to blood pudding, no big surprises
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