It’s perhaps not surprising that the top 12 keyword searches leading people to our website are variations of “The Reykjavík Grapevine.” That includes “grapewine” of course, which is almost guaranteed to be the work of Icelanders or foreigners misinformed by Icelanders who, after ten years, still think we’re called “The Reykjavík Grapewine.” Will this poor nation ever learn to differentiate their ‘v’s from their ‘double v’s? Probably not, but that’s all right because we own the domain www.grapewine.is too.
Barring more direct searches for Grapevine or Grapewine, the following is a list of the next ten most popular searches leading people to the site since we started using analytics in 2009. We’re not sure what to make of it all, but it’s semi-interesting anyway…
1. For some reason, “magnús þór þorbergsson,” is the 13th most popular search leading to Grapevine. He must be a very mysterious teacher at the Iceland Academy of the Arts and/or the article that we must have written about him must be loaded with SEO.
2. Skipping over “reykjavik news,” which is a rather boring search, “iceland porn” is the 15th most popular keyword search. News that Iceland was trying to ban porn must have really made a splash. A similar search for “Icelandic porn” is the 26th most popular one, but perhaps these people are actually looking for Icelandic porn. Who knows…
3. Skipping past a few more boring searches, “iceland revolution” is the 21st most popular one. This isn’t surprising given how much attention Iceland got for letting the banks fail, banging on pots and pans, ousting its government, bringing in a new one and last but not least, jailing its bankers. Some of that is myth, by the way.
4. And, skipping past a few more, there are searches for venues like “c is for cookie reykjavik” in 24th and “bakkus reykjavik” in 25th place. The former is a pretty nice coffee shop and the latter is one of the many bars in Reykjavík that no longer exits.
5. Then there’s “seljavallalaug” in 27th place. That’s the name of a pretty cool swimming pool in south Iceland. It’s tucked away at the foot of a mountain, a bit off the beaten path behind a newer pool, which is not nearly as much fun as the old one.
6. Skipping past “reykjavik gravepine,” because that’s just ridiculous, there’s “icelandic sweaters made in china.” I’d want to know if my super expensive handmade Icelandic wool sweater were really made in China, too.
7. Then comes “hemmi og valdi” and “hemmi & valdi” in the 30 and 31st place. We used to throw a concert series there called Grapevine grassroots. It’s a pretty cosy café.
8. After that comes “hugleikur dagsson” in 32nd. If you don’t know him, you should Google him and check out a bunch of the comics he has made for us through the years.
9. We know everyone loves Sigur Rós, but it’s apparently thanks to the band’s keyboard that fans are organically finding their way to us. Indeed, “sigur ros casio keyboard” is the 33rd most popular search.
10. Finally, skipping over “Iceland newspaper,” there’s “sigurður kjartan,” a former intern and current contributor. Now, I’m sure we can all agree that it’s okay to Google ourselves every once in a while, but THIS MANY TIMES, Siggi? Out of 204,443 unique searches, your name is the 35th most popular one. No wonder the guy’s so busy all the time!
Still pretty high on the list after these are searches for “sex in Iceland” and “Iceland sex,” for which we should probably thank Oprah Winfrey, the marketing department at Icelandair, Roosh Vörek and Quentin Tarantino. The latter spoke highly of “Icelandic women,” which is another popular search (incidentally tied “Icelandic coffee”). Finally, a few more after that include “troll stumble,” which maybe goes to show that dyslexic people like Brian Pilkington books, “huang nubo,” who desperately wants to own land in Iceland and “tom cruise Iceland,” which probably has something to do with the fact that TomKat recently split while he sojourned here.
Who knows how much of this has to do with our content, other people’s interests, or the ways of Google Panda and now Penguin, but it’s certainly some combination of the three.
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