Heck Of A Guy

While the vagaries of web site statistics and multiple situational confounders, as pointed out in The 2006 HOAGIE Awards & Internet Popularity Tutorial, render precise rankings of content almost impossible, there is at least one category in which the winner is clear-cut:

The most popular real estate on the Heck Of A Guy site is
[pause for effect, 2, 3, 4 ...]
a 350 X 252 patch of pixels bearing the image of Milli Vanilli

How could this be? That astoundingly convenient rhetorical question affords me the opportunity to elaborate on the back story or, as I prefer to call it, …

The Google-Milli Vanilli Conspiracy

Entering the words, “Milli” and “Vanilli,” in Google Image Search brings up, as the first page of results, those images shown in the screenshot below. [Click the thumbnail for a full-scale view]

Now, note the image circled on that same Google Image page.

Hovering over the circled graphic reveals the source:

Yep, that picture graced a Heck Of A Guy post.

Specifically, it was one of several graphics on I Can’t Believe It’s Not Music, a piece about my fondness for uh, under-appreciated musical talents. This selection is representative:

I like Neil Diamond’s music.

All of it.

A lot.

And, not in an ironic, smirky way.

I especially like the schmaltzy songs. I sometimes sing along on “Sweet Caroline.” In fact, I just switched the house system to the Neil Diamond playlist (42 of my favorite Neil Diamond hits). Sigh – at this very moment, I’m getting off on “Forever In Blue Jeans “although, ironically, I have not worn jeans in the past decade.

I go on and on and – as I am wont to do – on about the Monkees, The Lovin’ Spoonful, The Ace of Base, Sammy Davis, Jr. singing the lyrics to the theme from Hawaii 5-0, and much, much more.

And Milli Vanilli? Well, those guys are mentioned only once, but they do, among all the singers named, play a unique role, as outlined in the following excerpt:

That’s right. The prestigious Pixelated Post Popularity Prize goes to a publicity photo I employed solely to illustrate an example of pop musicians I disliked in an article otherwise devoted to artists who had won my adulation.¹

I Can’t Believe It’s Not Music did OK with readers, scoring in the top 25% of 2006 Heck Of A Guy posts by pageviews and unique visitors.

The Milli Vanilli photo, on the other hand, … well, that other hand has apparently been busy clicking away full time on that photo’s link in Google Image Search, accounting for thousands and thousands of hits, almost all of which are from different addresses.

I, for one, admit to being surprised to find that many people searching for a picture to represent musicians they don’t like.

But wait; there is – as you may have guessed – more.

The Perverse Perseverance Of The Milli Vanilli Graphic

The Milli Vanilli photo continues to be the most popular chunk of Heck Of A Guy geography as of this date, which wouldn’t be surprising and might even be expected – except for the following:

The Milli Vanilli photo continues to be the most popular chunk of Heck Of A Guy geography as of this date – even though two months ago I wrote a robots.txt² to prevent search engines from indexing the photo.

In fact, the Milli Vanilli photo continues to be the most popular chunk of Heck Of A Guy geography as of this date – even though I deleted the picture from the site altogether over a month ago.

The explanation for this perpetual popularity can be expressed as the Google-altered version of a standard proverb:

On Google, A Picture Not Only Is Worth A Thousand Words
But Also Lasts A Thousand Times Longer

While Google and the other search engines re-index the Heck Of A Guy text every day or two and important, fast changing sites on what seems an hourly basis, images are surveyed by a separate bot and re-indexing of graphics is accomplished at a more leisurely pace, perhaps as infrequently as every six months, according to some educated guesses.

But why did I dump the most popular file on the Heck Of A Guy site? That brings us to Milli Vanilli Photo Lesson #1:

Mom Was Right: You Can Be Popular For The Wrong Reason

If I had been selling a product that was in the picture or promoting the subject of the photo, I would, of course, been happy about its multitude of visitors.

If I were selling ad space, I might have kept the photo in place to promote the site’s popularity in general.

This was not such a case. The Milli Vanilli image was only incidental to the Heck Of A Guy blog. The image-hunters were not interested in the post that surrounded the photo, nor was the Milli Vanilli shot an original photo I snapped. They didn’t love me; they only wanted my Milli Vanilli.

Consequently, I pulled the plug, bidding farewell (I thought at the time) to all those hits. And, that segues into the most significant revelation of this series, AKA Milli Vanilli Photo Lesson #2:

Between Attracting & Pandering To An Audience Is A Thin Line

I am chagrined about the intense ambivalence surrounding the decision to delete that graphic. Even though I knew that the traffic it generated, as noted previously, had almost nothing to do with my blog and, if anything, it was a minor hassle because it used bandwidth from my account and confused the stats, I hesitated before pulling the trigger.

My own personality quirks aside, I am struck by the attraction I felt from this ephemeral, diaphanous flicker of esteem from folks registering approval of the blog by visiting the Heck Of A Guy site, regardless of their reason.

For the first time, I experienced an empathic understanding of the artistic dilemma novelists, poets, performers, and other creative sorts face when they must choose between adhering to their own private vision, which may restrict the potential audience and forgoing such purity in hopes of making oneself more accessible and attractive to a wider constituency.

After my truly trivial Milli Vanilli moment, it is difficult for me to grasp the enormity that allure must take on when creative work is the focus of ones life, not to mention the source of ones livelihood.

At this point, the astute reader, especially if that astute reader doesn’t mind playing straight man, may be asking, “What happens when all those folks come looking for a graphic that no longer exists at Heck Of A Guy?” The answer is Milli Vanilli Photo Lesson #3:

Sometimes You Do The Wholesome Thing And Get Lucky

It turns out that clicking on a link to a Google image that no longer exists on a blog directs the reader to the index page.

That means that yesterday, folks clicking on this:

were directed to this:

And, while most of those folks, once they figured out that their Milli Vanilli lust would not be sated here, departed within seconds, some did hang around to read a post of two.

Thanks, guys.

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1. To be fair to myself, I did select that particular picture because I thought it was endearingly goofy [↩]
2. A “robots.txt” is a script that directs search engine bots to index or not index certain files or directories on the web site [↩]