I got a searcher visiting my site yesterday from this Google query

link:fakesteve.blogspot.com

I don't know how that works, I must be about 1 in a billion sites that link to Fake Steve. But it happened, and I got a crack at a new, faithful, regular visitor. My site might not be what they want, but simply by linking out I've created a new way in to my site.

I've got several WT members in my blogroll, where Fake Steve sits, and if a person wanted to find out about Adam's blog, I bet I'd come up higher in the results and maybe get more visitors that way.

Plus, if people like what they find on my site, they'll come back a few weeks later to see if I found any more cool sites.

While I agree that linking out can provide benefits if done correctly (specifically providing users with relevant links to a topic), there's a flaw in that query: the "link:" operator. The only people who would ever put this in are "SEO Experts" who believe that the solution to all SEO-related problems is to go out and get a few more backlinks. Looks like you got one of those.

However, OUT is as important, if not moreso, as IN.

I was thinking that, too. It has to be an SEO using the link command, and I really don't cover SEO on my blog. Except as it relates to the global flow of information management. Which means my blog probably bored the heck out of whoever found it.

Although I'm not sure why anybody would be that interested in doing SEO homework on Fake Steve? It's a success story of content that went viral because it was unique, clever and hit the funny bone.

Here are the first shots of the Macworld madness, taken at 5 a.m. local time this morning. Hundreds of Apple faithful have been camping out in the streets around Moscone Center since last night. The brisk morning air is redolent with the odor of reefer, patchouli oil and nerd body funk. TV trucks are parked outside interviewing idiots and asking them what we're going to announce today. The Starbucks on 4th Street has a line halfway down the block. Even the filthy hacks in the press corps have started lining up early. There's pizza, Krispy Kreme donuts and lots of coffee. Sleeping bags and mats and folding chairs and pieces of cardboard, piles of fat geeks sprawled on the pavement -- it looks like a homeless convention. Overall I think it's about the ugliest single group of human beings I've ever seen in one place.

In the regular attendee line, a group of about 40 spoiled Google brats (above and below), with their typical sense of entitlement, showed up early, pitched a huge tent at the front, then took turns rotating in and out of line all night, working in shifts. When the doors open they're all going to crash in together -- and they think this is perfectly okay. The ****s. Moshe will deal with you all later.

Controlled substances appear to have been plentiful. This guy works at Google and claims he was just "sleepy." Nice hair, Morrissey.

I don't know either, dude, but I've seen a number of link: queries for various sites that I link out to and I stopped trying to figure it out a long time ago. The only answer of any kind I've ever been able to come up with is "competitor analysis", which does next to nothing in terms of what they're really trying to accomplish.

That must be a pretty half hearted competitor analysis! Wouldn't "wow, this is really funny and has good writing" be the first thing you notice instead of how many backlinz dey iz?

Holy crap, I'm #2 for the query link:fakesteve.blogspot.com! How on earth did that happen?