Did We Touch a Nerve?

I set out this morning to do one of those search term posts, the idea I stole from Susan Higginbotham you know, about my Today in Medieval History site, but the search terms people used over the past month just haven't been ripe for jokes.

They have, on the other hand, fascinating for their appropriateness! And in their numbers. For a long time I had been doing the calendar more or less for my own entertainment and hoping to help out suthors of medieval-era novels with some extra prom otion, but suddenly, thanks to a particular angel named Sharon Kay Penman, my stats are climbing rapidly.

Sharon, you see, stated on her own blog that Today in Medieval History is one of her favorite blogs and commented on my often "snarky" headlines and so forth.  I am afraid "Snark", if that means irreverent, is my native tongue.  She liked my reference to Henry II's wedding to "a French divorcee".  Since then my visitors have have multiplied gratifyingly.

I still find the keywords people used primarily in Google that led them to the calendar intriguing.  One person in Kea was looking for "king 1588".  I don't know what s/he was looking for, but I can't help but wonder what s/he made of "King Off, De Guise s in Town".

There were several searches for the unsurprising famous names, Mary Queen of Scots, for instance.  Another couple of people looked for "Catherine Howard, Queen of England" while someone else coincidentally found the blog via "Thomas Culpepper rape".  I mean, Kate was indeed aggressive, but did she rape him.  I doubt it.

The most common keywords were dates.  To wit:

• may 1291
• 8th july medieval
• Jul 7
• medieval 7th july
• Jul 4 and Jul 5  were both popular, as well as a few other early dates in July, one specifically interested in 4 July 1187.

I hope they learned what they hoped to.  The fact that several included the word "medieval" in their search as well as there being a couple for "today in medieval history " tempts me to think they were specifically looking for my daily calendar.  you can put the calendar on your site or blog, but I don't know how, if at all, that shows up in the stats.

If Sharon Kay Penman continues her embassy on my sites' behalf, she will quickly go from beloved author to abjectly adored around my kingdom..

By the way, my stats are collected at Statbounter.com .