Ordinary Joe's quest for Internet supremacy

In Thursday's edition of the Toronto Star, Joe Howell wrote about his experience and research in "Googling himself." Howell wrote that he was shocked after searching his own name on the popular website Google.com in hopes of finding an old paper he wrote a long time ago. Howell's search lead him to find that there were several other Joe Howell's out there that were ranked by Google's search engine way higher than he was.

After reading Howell's article I got thinking about my own name. The most noteworthy thing I found was that compared to myself, Joe Howell has one thing I don't, a common first name. Sure my first name "Michael" is common. I searched my first name and the first two entries are the popular craft store and a certain singer who we have know idea what race he is (is he black or white?). I obviously don't rank there to well. In fact I didn't even bother looking I figured so low. With my popular first name being, as my sister would call it "a GONG SHOW!", I soldiered on.

Let's search my first and last names together in a Google search which, unlike Joe Howell, should narrow things down a whole lot more. The results of this simple search show that I rank, first, second and fourth on the search entry. But who is third? Some guy with a profile named "Mike Suddard and fifth is a guy from Brampton, Ontario named Michael Suddard who plays the guitar. I wonder if Brampton Mike has ever googled his name to find this here blog or my website. (HEY MIKE! PLEASE COMMENT BELOW IF THIS HAS HAPPENNED!). Creepy, two of us living so close together with the same name. It has has happenned to my brother Peter, but that is another story for another day.

Finally, my last name is searched. Unlike Joe Howell's last name, Suddard isn't quite as common. But I do have lots of competition in order to rank very highly from a car dealership and a female car racer. Where do I rank on this one? NUMBER ONE BABY! I even beat out suddard.com (a computer design agency that ranks third) and the car dealership (ranks second). This here blog ranks fourth.

Apparently online I'm popular. I rank first in my full name and my last name. But does it really matter to me? No, not really, if any of my rankings were to fall, I wouldn't really care. Why not? Because, to tell the truth, I have no idea how I did it in the first place.