Someone linked to me
My readers really like NASCAR
My playful Top 10 Lists engender many comments. Evidence suggests that online NASCAR aficionados take very seriously a particular list of factoids and opinionoids enumerated in my epic work "Top 10 Reasons Why NASCAR is Stupid."
To that end, many dedicated web denizens leave comments for me. They generously defend their 'sport.' I appreciate their support and I always respond promptly to their concerns.
The hits just keep on coming
My NASCAR Top 10 List consistently receives visitors from cyberspace. It doesn't make me any money but it's nice to be regularly popular. Recently a sharp jump in hits caught my attention. 70 hits in a week excited me. I wanted to know more.
Thoughtful HubPages helps out
Typical page views originate via search engines. This is a good thing and we all crave to be indexed by Google and, to a much lesser extent, Bing and Yahoo.
Observing the High Quality photo provided below, we note that a particular site originated the vast majority of the recent visits to my page. The site is particular and peculiar because it lives in a domain that is unique to HubPages. Not too many Hub Pages pique the interest of Dutch bloggers.
The .nl domain represents The Kingdom of the Netherlands. It's referred to as a TLD or Top Level Domain. 21% of the population lives beneath sea level but they still have Internet access, which is very cool. We Yanks don't often use country code TLDs. Some TLDs familar to English-reading folks would be .com, .org. and .net.
How did mancave.conrad.nl spark so much interest in my page?
It's Dutch and it's a blog. So far so good.
As illustrated in the High Quality photo above, this unique link source is written a language prohibited by HubPages. Were I to publish an article in Dutch, it would be intercepted by HubLords and digitally discarded. I already have too many of those.
Hopefully incoming links from non-English speaking sites slip past the HubGatekeepers. Hopefully I can get away with making up new English words by appending 'Hub' to mainstream words. Hopefully this paragraph is over now.
Google comes to the rescue
My new friends at mancave.conrad.nl write in Dutch. I don't speak Dutch. I speak English and Java and Visual Basic and C++, but only English works in the McDonald's Drive-through.
I need a linguistic bridge. I need a universal translator that I can stick in my ear. Short of that, I need a web page that understands Dutch. Google comes to mind. They know everything. The Google translator doesn't work universally but it's pretty good terrestrially.
After a little copy/paste action I obtained one computer's version of the blog title:
The Electronics Blog Undervoltage.
Undervoltage is a real world word describing a particular deficiency in the quality of electricity. It's also referred to as a sag. Your voltage may be sagging just now. Most voltage will droop now and then. Hopefully you've installed a UPS to prop up any pesky undervoltage conditions.
Anyway, I suspect the use of the word undervoltage is wordplay poking fun at the quality of the blog content. Self-deprecating humor, perhaps.
I don't know Dutch, but I know how to search
The blog is mostly incomprehensible to English-speaking me, but I recognize a Search Box in any language. Searching for the acronym NASCAR seemed like a semi-interesting thing to do.
The two High Quality photos below depict my interaction with the Dutch blog. Thanks to the universal artifacts of HTML, I was able to find what appeared to be a mention of my article. This is getting exciting.
What are they saying about me?
The blog post is still in Dutch
I can translate, but the result isn't good.
Evidently my NASCAR article now resides in a Bottom 10 List. This Dutch blogger doesn't like my work.
Translation continues...
Now they really don't like me. Google stumbles a little through the translation, but it's clear that there just might be NASCAR fans in The Kingdom of the Netherlands.
My feelings are not hurt. English NASCAR fans are even more vociferous. The opposite of love isn't hate, it's indifference.
There's no such thing as bad publicity, right?
In summary: it's all good. An incoming link caused my hit count to pop and I had fun with Google Translator. A dutch blog has been immortalized on HubPages. Everyone wins.
How good is this link?
Page Rank is the super-secret algorithm that Google uses to judge incoming links. You'll never know how Page Rank is calculated. Dedicated teams of software engineers toil mercilessly across the world to keep the details incognito. Google has only two assets: cash and secrecy. One day they will be forced to give up both, but for now they are large and in charge.
Our favorite Dutch site owns a Page Rank of 3. That's pretty good. It's 10 times better than 2 because the scale is exponential. You can use prChecker.com to look it up.
An incoming link is judged by Google according to its' Page Rank. A higher number makes you look better. You'd be very happy if IBM.com linked to your Women's Rights screed: IBM.com boasts a Page Rank of 8. That's a whopper number.
You'd also be somewhat happy if I linked my subdomain, nicomp.hubpages.com, to you. I've built a PR of 4. In Google's online eyes I am 10 times better than that Dutch blog. The entire process is certainly debatable.
Conclusion
To all my fans at mancave.conrad.nl :
Dank u voor uw link!