We recently received a frantic email from the
Ocean City Chamber of Commerce, asking us if we
could do anything to "clean out the search engines.."
Seems they couldn't even find themselves there.
Indeed, if you go to most of the search engines
these days, and type in "Ocean City", you will
get anywhere between twenty-five and seventy-five
consecutive listings for Menu Magazine, a beach
publication that's been doing some pretty agressive
web work lately.
The web stuff they do is good, Mike Slavin is one
of the best graphics guys around. And if you enjoy
reading menus, then you'll love Menu Magazine. We
tend to read menus only when we are about to order
a meal, but to each his own. We don't doubt there
are some people who are fascinated by the variety
of prepared foods available at the beach, and what
each and every one of them costs.
But while there is more to Ocean City than menus,
one can hardly tell from Web Crawler, or Lycos, or
most of the other search engines. In fact, one gets
the impression that "In the beginning, there was
Menumag, and Menumag begat Ocean City."
Those of us who remember when the Carousel Hotel was
lost up in the northern undeveloped dunes know differently.
Ocean City has been around for a long time, and it's not
a pimple on anybody's butt.
Just a day after we got that mail, (we had to regretfully
inform the Chamber of Commerce that the search engines were
beyond our control, but that it would be possible to request
a correction from them directly,) a restaurant-owner from
down that way stopped in to sign up. As we always try to
do, we showed him the web, and he was very interested and
pleased to see his own pages which were prepared, of course,
by Menumag.
He was well aware, and delighted, in fact, that all roads
in the utilities led to the magazine, because they led to
his restaurant as well.
"Doesn't it bother you at all, " we asked, "that nothing
at the beach shows up EXCEPT Menumag?", assuming that he
was, like most business-people, somewhat civic-minded.
"Not at all," he replied. "I think it's great."
"Great... for whom?" we wondered. Certainly not great
for The Chamber of Commerce. Nor for the City, or anyone
else down there who wants to get exposure on the web.
And while it may seem clever, and maybe even fool-proof,
we doubt that it will have the desired effect. The internet
is a funny place when it comes to people trying to be
heavy-handed. It's like a tai-chi master, who lets an
opponent defeat himself with the force of his own blow.
The more you try to be noticed on the web, it seems,
the more people will ignore you.
We could give these folks the benefit of the doubt,
and assume this was unintentional, but we know better.
THEY know better. They know that multiple entries in
search engines are discouraged, and they went ahead and
did it anyway. How terribly clever of them.
Were they just trying to be sure they were in there,
or were they trying to ensure that no one else could
be found ? It's hard not to think that's the case
when you page through the search results, and see
entry after entry, some referring back to a single
page. There are even entries for pages consisting
of one lousy photograph. Come on, fellas.
We think it will blow up on them, in the long run.
Anyone who searches for Ocean City will see this
stuff and skip over all of it. Or they'll just
forget Ocean City all together.
If they do, it won't matter what's on the menu.
Would you like some fries with that ?
March 30, 1996 Charles Paparella The Shore Journal
You really ARE a crotchety old fart, aren't you ?