Searching For Your Own Site - Gratitude in Trials

Yesterday, I posted about how my blog was hijacked to another site. I wanted to share something I found while searching that I hadn't know about before. 

I know that you can search for your own blog on any search and find every post you have ever made along with anything and everything that includes your words in it somewhere leading to tons of hits on any search engine. 

I have searched for my blog a few times when I couldn't find a post I wanted while using someone computer and didn't want to "log in" from their computer. Other than those few times, I use the search inside my own blogger page to find posts I want to find. 

So, using a search engine to look at something on my blog isn't something I would usually do. 

While on my quest to figure out how to gain control of my own account, I learned how to search my own site when OTHER people list my site on their websites. 

If you type in your own blog title and put in the word Site with quotes around it, it will search for any person that has my site listed in their post or linked on their blog. 

I was surprised at how many people have linked my site in their posts or used it as a reference in their posts or have "pinned" something I have posted on their sites. 

I was also SHOCKED at some posts which had my blog name in their perverse site. I am guessing that they just stole a list of all the blogs on blogger and put them somewhere on their site with white letters on a white background so you can see your name on their site but NEVER search or click on a site with "imagesExpire" or Images and anything that begins with the letter EX as it will take you to a imageSEXpire sex website but you won't get that until you find some VERY disturbing images. 

When you try to click out or search for your blog name, they opened LOTS of horrifying videos and images and ask you to upgrade your security on your computer making it look like it is from Microsoft etc. If you click yes, I am disturbed what would have been downloaded or uploaded from your computer. I had to close about five new windows and then shut my computer off and reboot just to be sure nothing was loaded onto my computer and have felt like I needed to take a shower ever since. 

So, avoid looking at any PIXX or sEx sites. There was a Celebpixx site that when I clicked on it, there was a warning from the browser saying that the site has stolen information and click at my own risk. So, I learned those two things today.

Now, on to the better news. My blog is number 6,500,000 in the world!!! ha ha. If I search for my blog by name on yahoo, 4,800,000 sites come up. Who would have thought I would be so popular after four years of posting? :-) 

But, in reality, I was really surprised at how many places in the world my blog showed up. There is someone in Europe that likes the way I prune my trees and I have my own link from this "tree" blogger. Here is my post about that.

Someone who does hair blog has a link in the "cornrow bead" section. Here is my link to that.

Somehow, I am linked to the "Birkenstock" web page. I couldn't see my blog directly but they have several pages of blogs where their shoes are talked about so I guess my blog posts on customizing my own Birks or just how much I like them has me linked to their web page. 

I am sited on a page for health where someone is trying to sell their metabolism product where they link all sorts of blogs with any information on iodine trying to sell their hair replacement product. Here is the page I have on iodine.

I am on a site for my dehydrated yogurt post and on another for my dehydrated pickle post.

There are many pages where youtube has videos lined up by category so you can just watch all the videos on a certain subject so anytime I have posted a video on comparing a product, it will come up as I have used my blog title to upload the videos so many of the pages are linked to that. 

It is interesting to see how on yahoo, if I search thesecretisgratitude.com. 7,210 results show up. But, if I take off the .com, I have 6,390 even less but I did search with all the words together like this - thesecretisgratitude.. If I add thesecretisgratitude.blogspot.com (only adding the blog spot in the address) I get 47 results even though I have almost 1300 posts on my blog and 100 videos on youtube. So, search engines do vary. Google's seach with just thesecretisgratitude.com has 47,000 or so hits. Adding the blogspot to it takes it down to 25,800 hits and if I take all the .coms off, I get 5,140 hits. 

When I search "The Secret is Gratitude" there are 20,200,000 hits on Google. Obviously there are many people putting gratitude and secret into their writing. I was actually really shocked to see that my blog is the fifth link listed. I don't know if that is just because I have been searching it or it is just because of locality as I know sometimes they gear searches for your area but still, that is fairly neat fifth down on the list.

Just for fun, I did the same thing on Yahoo search and there were almost 9,000,000 hits. On this page, I was also near the top in many posts links but there were some with the same name on other peoples posts near the top so I clicked on one just to see what it was. I guess someone was going through a divorce and "stumbled" in their words, onto one of my posts. They linked to a specific post I had written and mentioned how they liked how I wrote it. It was their Thanksgiving Day Post. Here is a link to their post.

Once again, God has given me something to be grateful for at the end of this very trying and tireing day. Headaches, not being able to get to my own blog posts, lack of sleep as my neck is still sore and not moving well, I have two dehydrators going and haven't taken the stuff off and I have a box full of yams that need to be roasted and frozen. I called my sister about something I thought she would like today and found that she was having a worse day than I was, hitting a boulder on the way out of her driveway and her car won't drive now and even more horrifying is that I forgot my brothers birthday and had to call him belated today. So, having a trying day, finding that my blog post of many years ago helped someone during a time of stress and helping them have a better thanksgiving somehow made my day end on a better note. 

Even thought it is now after 4 a.m. in the morning, I am still grateful that my blog has made a difference in someones life. 

With all the frustration today, several people suggested I move my blog to another page and change the name as I couldn't have taken this one as it is taken. I really struggled with that thought as I do believe that the secret to a happy life is GRATITUDE. I don't want to change the blog name or remove it as I like the name and I even thought about giving up on the blog after four years, I have wondered if I do make a difference or if the blog is worth keeping up. Then, in searching for ways to keep it available for people to view, I find all these little gems that I wouldn't have otherwise searched for or found. 

I shared in the past about a woman contacting me from a law office and telling me that my post "The Grass May be Greener Part 1 and 2" changed her life and she just wanted to thank me. Here is the post about that.

I got a thank you comment about two weeks ago about my trailer post fixing the roof vents. I got a thank you from a man about my juicing and carrot flour post and video on youtube recently. I have some private comments that I haven't posted where people thanked me for specific posts. So, after all the "negative" that happened today, in the end, it really turned out to be a POSITIVE for me. 

After all is said and done, I STILL believe that the "secret" is Gratitude so even in the darkest moments, I know there is always something in that moment that we can give gratitude for. Each night as I go to sleep, I concentrate on the blessings in my life and give a gratitude prayer for those things. We each have so much to be thankful for. I am thankful for friends that help me, siblings that forgive me, being able to help siblings that are having a bad day, children that make good choices as one wrote me a lovely text about someone she dated who is now getting married in a not so good way and how she was grateful for her choices and mine. I am grateful for blogger giving me the chance to express my gratitude which allows others to read about it and hopefully be inspired. I am grateful for those who take the time to read the posts and share their insights with me. 

Most especially, I am grateful for a Heavenly Father who loves me even when I forget to give Him gratitude in all things. I know He loves me either way but I can't help thinking that He loves it when we remember to thank Him even for our trials. So, I give gratitude this day for Him and for my trials of this day!