You know (well, many of you do) that, when I had my new hip, I had the operation with local anaesthetic and no sedation – Pamela has a very helpful information site about hip replacements and I offered her the post, in case anyone was considering the same option. This was a couple of months ago. Today, I noticed on Facebook that she’d reposted it. I clicked through and read it, it had my name on it, and I saw at the bottom that she’d put a link to this blog.
You know what that means, don’t you? Yup, a direct link from my name to this blog on the first page of Google. It’s not that I’ve been cagey about who I am here, a couple of people have told me they found the blog first and realised who was writing it, but I’ve been diffident about the link going the other way, from name to blog. There was a link already, but it was on the third or fourth page. After all these years, I’m not too bothered, mind you, but I do have a distinctive name and I feel slightly self-conscious.
I can’t face the thought of re-reading nearly six years of daily blogging to check whether I’ve ever said anything about anyone that is at all gossipy. I did make the decision, after just a few months, to take out personal remarks, because a friend had caused offence by being rude about someone’s appearance in an identifiable blog (he thought he was anonymous, but as soon as I read it, I recognised him and at that time I’d only met him once for a few minutes). It was at that time, too, that I reversed the name of the town to Yagnub.
Still, onwards and upwards, hey. And hello and welcome to anyone who is here from Pamela’s site. As she said, this is a personal blog about my general life and so on, but if you’re looking for info about a hip operation, go back to January 2009. The operation was on the 22nd and I wrote about my recuperation for some weeks. I’m afraid I’ve never bothered to label posts, so that won’t help you – but if anyone really wants to know, I suppose it wouldn’t take more than an hour or so to label them all for you, so let me know if it’ll help.
Oh, and quite a number of friends know I have a blog, but only three outside the family have ever asked its name, and I think that one of those has never visited. And a friend of Ro’s tracked it down. Most people who know me well feel that it would be a bit like reading my diary. Which I suppose it is, but it’s not a private secret one, of course. I’m no JonnyB (nor am I writing a book, and never intend to).
Oooops. But, 3rd or 4th page on Google is well within the first screen-ful if you have Google set to return 100 items at a time rather than ten.
If you want to link to a particular post, you don’t need labels: just right click the date of the post at its foot, and copy the URL. Then paste it as a link within the post as you normally would. Instructions for Macs may vary… 😉
And we knew you before you hit the big time!
It’s getting harder and harder to retain true anonymity on the internet. I’ve totally given up now and this week have put my full name up on my Etsy shop, which has a link back to my blog. Might as well start using Martin’s name on my blog too, instead of the pseudonym. Oh I don’t know. Maybe not.
I was thinking more labelling all posts by categories, BW. And the time it would take would be in looking out all
And, remarkably enough, the earlier link I mentioned is way up at number 2, even ahead of the hip link, this morning. It was just a comment I made on someone’s blog years ago, and filling in the name on the comment form, it autofilled and I didn’t notice.
I won’t forget my friends, von LX! Even when they disown me…
If you googled Lowestoft china, you’d probably find this blog too. And posts on that certainly identify me, and the Sage too. It’s only that people rarely tell you if they find your blog – though the two I mentioned did, which was nice of them.
When I started my blog in 2008 I consciously decided that I wasn’t that fussed whether I was identifiable, as long as I didn’t get harassed. And I think that was a good decision. I have made a lot of good contacts through the blog, with only the very occasional dodgy moment. It’s just the chance you take.