Yes, I have been silent for a while. Here. Not over here. And there are reasons. Not necessarily good reasons, but reasons.
First, let me address my old friends at Google. DON’T YOU LOVE ME ANYMORE? The release of the Google 2001 Index shows that back in those early days of blogging, I was the #1 Wendell on the Web, even thought there was no ‘Wendell’ in my domain name. Such was the power that came from being part of the first wave of weblogs.
When I lost that original domain name (a sad story of offline misfortune; the current holders of that URL I would prefer that you avoid), I obviously disappeared, but came back strong when I became WendellWit.com. But the competition for Wendellosity was more intense; Mr. Wendell Berry of Kentucky was writing more important words than I was – Wendell August, Wendell Castle, Wendell Minor and just plain Wendell’s were making fancy things – and the city fathers of Wendell towns in North Carolina, Massachusetts and Minnesota were working to have a more impressive presence on the Web than on the map. Still, I regained a position in or near the first page of Google results and held a PageRank of 5-out-of-10, which I felt I didn’t deserve but gladly accepted. Yahoo! Search usually placed me a couple spots lower than Google, but still better than some much more famous Wendells.
Wendells like Mr. Stanley, Nobel Prize winner for Chemistry in 1946 and Mr. Willkie, Republican Presidential candidate in 1940. Wendell Pierce brought the “Bunk” to “The Wire”, while the Wilson brothers brought Wendell Baker to the big screen. Wendell Corey was one of those ubiquitous “Oh, him!” actors in the 50s and 60s and a notable pre-Reagan Hollywood Republican. And don’t forget Wendell Gilley, bird carver (I can hardly imagine carving birds, what with the feathers and the squawking…). Then there’s White House Correspondent Wendell Goler, who is as fair and balanced as FoxNews allows any of its reporters to be. Wendell Ford was a U.S. Senator from Kentucky for 24 years and Senate Whip for the last 8 of them; you gotta respect the Whip. Wendell Scott was a LEGEND OF NASCAR and subject of a Richard Pryor movie. Wendell Rider is an outdoorsman, photographer and horn player but his WendellWorld.com site shows he’s no web designer. Wendell Cox has a PUBLIC PURPOSE (mostly about Mass Transit Issues). And Discovery Channel’s Kidsite has a mascot named Wendell… the Worm. There is a lot of Wendellization going on out there.
Musically, R.E.M. made “Wendell Gee” one of the most depressing songs they ever recorded, and Arrested Development, the Hip-Hop Group not the Sitcom, totally messed up the spelling on “Mr. Wendal”. (I really don’t want to even begin with the dorks who spell it Wendall – At least Google knows it’s a mistake.) But if you’re looking for Wendell Music, I wholeheartedly recommend Wendell Ferguson, who mixes extremely skillful country-rock guitar with the best musical sense of humor east of Weird Al. The guy titled his first live album “When the S#!t Hits the Fans”, fergunessake!
When I first got into radio I was reminded of the illustrious announcing careers of Wendell Niles and Bill Wendell, one of the few notables with Wendell as a last name BUT who had changed his name from Wenzel, because TV networks don’t like the letter Z. Stiil, ol’ Bill worked with both Ernie Kovacs and David Letterman, which is what you call double awesomeness. But it was Wendell Craig who has become the Voice of Wendellness for my generation (another “Oh, him!” – go ahead and check out the demos on his site – he even has a campaign commercial for Elliot Spitzer).
And as long as I ‘ve raised the “Wendell Not As First Name” issue, I have to mention Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. AND Jr., and their beloved TV character semi-namesake (warning: link makes sitcom noises).
But I digress. Big time.
Meanwhile all versions of MSN Search as far back as I have ever seen have been totally ignoring me, and considering how many articles I got published at msnbc.msn.com with byline links back to my blog, it’s high on my personal list of “Examples That Microsoft Doesn’t Know What It’s Doing”. As time went by, I grew uncomfortable with WendellWit (as I explained before in a blogpost I haven’t yet moved to the current address) and changed it to the full-name WendellWittler.com, then to TalkingWithMyself.com. I was somewhat encouraged that, in spite of the Wendell-less domain name, my prominence among the Wendells of the World held up and I recovered a high Google and Yahoo! ranking quickly.
But for some still totally unexplained reason, when I leaped at the Wendell Domain Name in the .me TLD, I DISAPPEARED WITHOUT A TRACE FROM GOOGLE’S “WENDELL” LISTING AND HAVE NOT YET RETURNED. Even searching for “Wendell Wittler”, this blog is #41 while my Facebook page, which I haven’t touched since they kicked out Scrabulous, is #2. Yahoo! Search has me and my .me at #64, right after Wendell Corey and acceptable considering my infrequent updates and lack of fully restored archives. But WTF GOOGLE?!?
There are things I can do, and you’ve read one of them, a lengthy blogpost all on the front page with numerous spider-friendly links to other Wendells, just to get their attention. And there will be more. Oh yes, there will be more. I’m going to go totally SEO on their asses (BTW, I am already using the #1 SEO Plug-In for WordPress here, so why aren’t the SE’s Oing?). Thanks for bearing with me, here. The high-value content you’ve come to rely on me for will resume briefly.
Is A Part Of
emoticon, this is it.
