Keyphrases used on search engines

By Michael Dorausch, D.C.

“Keyphrases used on search engines” is what the title bar reads when I’m checking log files for planetchiropractic.com. I discussed a similar topic, top 10 search keyphrases, a few weeks ago. In that post, all of the terms consisted of more than two words, except for the term chiropractic. The list of phrases I’m going to address here are from the month of June 2008 log files, but they are not necessarily ones from the top 10 (which doesn’t change often).

1. planet chiropractic — That’s a popular search term that results in visitors to the planetc1.com homepage. A number of people type chiropractic planet (as in planetc1.com) which ends up in the same place (thanks to 301 redirection of the URL).

Apparently, people also type the full URLs (planetchiropractic.com and www.planetc1.com) into browser bars on search engines. I always found it interesting that people would rely on the results of a search engine rather than a direct URL query. Such a practice may not always get you to the destination you seek. One example that continues to appear in our search logs is a great number of searches for www.obama.com, which includes a top Google result leading to this page on presidential campaign website success secrets.

2. candice michelle — It’s been more than two years since I believe the first Candace Michelle related news appeared on Planet Chiropractic. The previously linked article, along with this one about her chiropractic husband, continue to get lots of visitors. Her name may not appear as a chiropractic search term until one sees how many conferences she attends.

3. chiropractic salary — A search for chiropractic salary information mostly results and visitors to the salary of a chiropractor articles. Some people skip straight to the stats on salaries (which is really part of the same article) and I’ve noticed people also landing on this practice growing article, and this employment resources summary article.

4. chiropractic jobs — In a way this is similar to the above search phrase but my gut tells me people searching “chiropractic jobs” are more interested in work related information (like that posted in the chiropractic classifieds) rather than articles on salaries and education. Performing a search through the news archives, there is a couple of dozen articles related to jobs in general.

5. paz espiritual — If you don’t speak Spanish you may not be aware that paz espiritual translates as spiritual peace. Why are people visiting Planet Chiropractic seeking such a term? That’s why it’s a good idea to check search logs. Doing my own search I discovered an article by Dr. Edwin Cordero, which included the terms paz mental, paz espiritual in the article title. It’s a Spanish authored article about chiropractic. On further investigation I found there’s about a dozen articles featuring the phrase.

6. scoliosis and chiropractic — There is a featured planetchiropractic article from quite some time ago (I believe 2000) on the topic of scoliosis and chiropractic. People are still reading that article every day, which was authored by a kid in middle school (who received press in local papers), writing regarding his and his sister’s experiences with scoliosis and chiropractic care.

7. tiger woods chiropractic — Tiger Woods related searches increased right after the U.S. Open. Those searches resulted in finding articles related to the 2006 British Open, the 2007 PGA championship, and others.

8. words beginning with the letter x — Would you believe people are searching for words beginning with the letter X? Probably the most popular x beginning word in the chiropractic profession is xray (or x-ray). I don’t know what XPS stands for but my old Dell laptop continues receiving search traffic.

9. disappearance of bees — An article by Dr. Darrel Crain is fairly popular for people seeking information regarding the mysterious disappearance of bees. The piece is more about pharmaceuticals than it is about insects, but it’s a good read.

10. jenny mccarthy vaccines — Searches for topics related to vaccines and vaccination have been popular on planet chiropractic since the news launched in June of 1999. Jenny McCarthy has brought a lot more attention to the discussion of vaccines and autism and search traffic is showing she’s doing a good job of getting the word out.

11. san francisco womens marathon — I did not find many articles related to that key phrase, but the most relevant one would be the Nikes women’s marathon in San Francisco (2007). It’s likely to be around the same weekend dates for the month of October in 2008.

A few other terms I didn’t get to go into detail on include montel williams, crystal meth babies, california chiropractors, mua certification, and lance armstrong. That’s it for my June review.