The Nutrition Debate #215: Just Google “The Nutrition Debate”

 

I’ve been writing this column, and blogging twice a week at thenutritiondebate.com, for several years. Blogger, the platform that I use, has a “follower” function, but it no longer works in Internet Explorer (Google wants me to switch to Chrome). Many of my regular readers follow me by RSS feed, available at the top of the blog in the Blogger format, but most of my new readers are introduced to “The Nutrition Debate” by Google searches on topics of interest to them, and that’s fine.

Blogger provides me with some simple statistics or my readership by day, week, month and all-time. It also tracks my audience by country, traffic source, and post (column), so I have a broad idea of who, how and what my readership is. More than half of my readers are in the U. S. Other countries where I am widely read include the UK, Canada, Germany and France. Recently I had over 1,000 page views in a 1-hour period from Israel. (I’d love to know how that happened and what the Israelis found so interesting. So if somebody knows, please leave a comment or send me an email.)

I also have a loyal following in Sweden, Russia, Hong Kong and Singapore. The Singapore readership in on a site where a very popular and avuncular social network leader writes on the subject of “Clean Eating.” He provides occasional links to my columns and has even posted a few as permanent resources for his multitude of followers.

It also appears that someone in both China and Ukraine has “hijacked” my content (with or without attribution, who knows?) and appears to post everything I write. They may use Google Translate to post them in Chinese and Russian – again, who knows? I just know that in the last year I have been getting many thousands of page views from China and Ukraine. If somebody there can tell me how that is happening, I’d like to know. I don’t object, mind you. I write this column for educational purposes and have no pecuniary interest in it. There is no revenue, and I have no interest in ever commercializing it.

This might also be a good time to mention that I have a wonderful and intrepid “volunteer editor,” a person who makes my writing clearer, checks my facts, and whose digital resources are almost as vast as Google’s (slight exaggeration there). Her acumen in all things health and nutrition is only exceeded by her generous heart and her interest in spreading the word about good nutrition and healthy eating.

So, as Google seems to be the main, continuing source of new readers, I encourage this method of using that search engine. Just as Google has a “feeling lucky” search function, you could do the same. Just type “The Nutrition Debate” in the “window,” hit “enter,” and let ‘er rip. I guarantee that my blog will come up first and perhaps again on the first page as well. Who knows what Google will find for you that may be of interest? Google’s selects. You choose.

Of course, if you want to do a more targeted search, you could do something more “advanced.” Enter “The Nutrition Debate” and then another word or phrase of interest to you. Let Google do the work. To see how well this works, I just entered “the nutrition debate triglycerides” and all ten (10) Google results were columns that I have written on triglycerides. This works very well in the absence of “tags,” “labels,” or “key words.” Who needs an alphabetical Index or even a Table of Contents?

On the other hand, if you’d like to see a list of all my columns, in some browsers you can see a list in the order written at the top right corner of the homepage, listed first under “Favorite Links and Videos.” Alas, this no longer works in IE either.

So, if you are one of those who increasingly rely on Google (or another search engine), as I do, I encourage you to try the advanced search technique described above. I am too lazy, and too much of a Luddite, at this point, to go back over 214 columns and enter tags, labels and key words. Use technology to search instead. It works for me. Just Google “the nutrition debate” and another key word or phrase, press “enter,” and “get lucky.”

Then, if you like what you have read, go to the RSS feed and get my blog delivered twice a week to your hand-held device, tablet, laptop, or work station. And by all means, send me your comments and ideas. I’m always looking for subjects of interest to both me and my readers.