Every minute on the web…

Earlier this month, a very interesting post appeared in Velvet Chainsaw’s Midcourse Corrections entitled, “Every 60 Seconds These 21 Things Happen On the Internet.” It is pretty short, but includes a beautiful infographic from Shanghai Web Designers.

For copyright interests, I will not reprint the entire 21-point list here, but I invite you all to read the post using the link above.

Several of these items are particularly interesting as an Internet genealogist in general but also as a self-employed small business owner and as a professional researcher.

• The search engine Google serves more than 694,445 queries

How often do you repeat your genealogy-related Google searches? The way that Google’s search algorithm works (at least the last time I read on the subject — it may have changed, so if someone knows better, please correct me), the more hits a site gets, the higher its search ranking.

With well over a half-million searches every single minute, it is possible that a site that did not show up (or showed up too far down the list for you to find) could find its search ranking improved and move up the search results. This means that a site that was barely visible before could now be made visible.

• 70 new domains are registered

Do you plan on creating a website? If so, you’d better check on the availability of your ideal domain name and reserve it, before it’s too late! ; )

• 1,600+ reads are made on Scribd

Are you familiar with Scribd — a great platform for creating and publishing ebooks?

• As a researcher, I found on Scribd a published transcription of a young woman’s diary from the small town of Lynn Haven, Florida — a diary that just happened to have been written by a young friend of my great-grandfather (who also appears to have had a crush on his younger brother). Reading this was wonderful!
• I always upload flyers for the genealogy events where I will be appearing, as well as other local events where I will not be speaking, to Scribd. From there I can tweet and post the link on Facebook, etc., to share with others.
• As an author, I use Scribd to sell electronic copies of all of my books.
• As a publisher, I use Scribd to distribute copies of all of the 1867 Texas voter registration lists that I have published as PDF “e-books.”

If you are not already using Scribd, please take a look. And be sure to run a search for some of your surnames. You may be surprised at what you find, just like I was!

Also take a look at the remaining items on this list of what happens online in a single minute. I would love to hear your thoughts on these, as both Internet users and as online genealogists. Could any of these statistics change the way you leverage your Internet use?

SOURCE: Hurt, Jeff. “Every 60 Seconds These 21 Things Happen On the Internet.” Velvet Chainsaw’s Midcourse Corrections. Posted 11 Jul 2011. http://jeffhurtblog.com/ : 2011.

If you would like to cite this post: Michael Hait, “Every minute on the web…,” Planting the Seeds: Genealogy as a Profession blog, posted 29 Jul 2011 (https://michaelhait.wordpress.com : accessed [access date]).