As I’ve mentioned before, scanning webserver access logs sometimes occasionally provides a source of minor amusement (at least for a pathetic computer geek with no other life). Something I stumbled onto tonight leaves me unsure whether to be amused or frightened.
209.58.72.84 – – [23/Sep/2004:21:25:21 -0400] “GET /blog/article.php?story=2003112608264175&mode=print HTTP/1.0” 200 1077 “http://search.msn.com/results.aspx?FORM=MSNH&q=fighting%20unemployment” “Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.0; Ministry of Labour, Commerce and Industries)”
That’s the raw data. Rough translation is somebody hit an entry in my blog from an MSN search on “fighting unemployment”. The browser ID string, “Ministry of Labour, Commerce and Industries”, indicates that it’s probably someone working for a government agency. A little checking reveals that the IP address, 209.58.72.84, belongs to Tonga Communications Corporation, fully owned by the kingdom of Tonga.
So, presumably, somebody in the Tonga Ministry of Labour, etc. is desperately searching the web for advice on fighting unemployment. And the second hit in the list that MSN returned was a blog entry I wrote last year about an example from Indiana of how not to fight unemployment.
I don’t suppose I could charge Tonga huge consulting fees for using my “work”. And if this is the best they can come up with, I wouldn’t expect to see their unemployment rate drop any time soon. Maybe they would have gotten better results if they had used Google. I don’t show up until the second page of that search on Google, and the first page has some stuff that might actually be useful. Once again, Microsoft wins the market with an inferior product. I’d love to know how my little bit of sarcasm managed to rank second on a list of over 127,000 hits for that search. At least Bill G hasn’t blacklisted me from his search engine for all the mean things I say about him.