Every once in a while, someone on SEOmoz comments about ranking #1 on Google for a search term like “sexiest man in SEO.” Some of this is deliberate, either just in good fun or an exercise in SEO prowess, but frequently we also rank #1 for terms we never intended to, just by building search-friendly sites.
So, just for fun, let me put a question out there to all of you Mozzers: what weird terms do you rank #1 for? I’ll get the ball rolling: thanks to some geeky posts on my blog about interfaces in science fiction, I now rank #1 for “x-wing targeting computer.” Okay, so it’s probably the opposite of sexiest anything, but I beat out Wikipedia, so I’ve got that going for me.
On the serious side, though, here’s the other question: are these accidental rankings a good or bad thing? Personally, I’m not a big fan of traffic for traffic’s sake, but it goes a bit deeper than that. Is it a disservice to searchers when we rank for terms for which we have little or no value? For example, I used to occasionally rank for “Jet Blue seating” due to an old post about Jet Blue’s odd legroom designations. Now, I wasn’t trolling for keywords or trying to pull in Jet Blue customers, but, undoubtedly, anyone looking for actual information on booking a flight on Jet Blue had their time wasted by clicking through to my site. From a usability standpoint, I did those visitors a disservice. Sure, it wasn’t my fault, but to me, that Google search is like Page 0 of my site; I want it to provide value as often as possible.
