A Legend in His Own Mind

While doing a routine Google search on 'chess', I noticed Chess for All Ages (CFAA) was the last result on the first page. Up there with the big boys like Chess.com and Wikipedia chess, had I made it or what? I took a screen snapshot to memorialize the occasion.

Then I noticed that CFAA was at no.11 on the first page of search results, where I normally see only 10 results per page. Then I remembered that I had signed on earlier to Google to record some stats. I signed off, did the same search on 'chess', and -- POOF! -- the CFAA result had disappeared. I signed in again, redid the search, and CFAA was back at no.11.

In the old days, meaning last week, Google used to show results 'Results from Your Social Network', or whatever, at the end of the first page of results when I was signed in. I wish they -- you do know who 'they' are, don't you? -- would stop trying to tailor search results to match my expectations. How can they realistically have any idea what I want to see? And, yes, I do know the URL of my own blog; thanks anyway, Google.

This little episode reminded me of a post from a few years back, My 15 Minutes of Fame. Oh, to relive that glorious past!