Surprising Search Results: Unintentionally Getting on the 1st Page of Google

Published: Apr 11, 2021
Updated: Feb 16, 2024

When first making this site, one of the goals was to brand myself online. (The other goal was to have a creative outlet). If you searched for my full name, I wanted to be the 1st result, or at least on the 1st page.

Since that time, I’ve published a small set of articles. And funny enough, articles I thought were obscure one-offs, are now top hits…

It’s interesting, because I don’t do anything to game the system. I don’t do marketing. I don’t have associated social media accounts. Heck, I don’t even have a publishing schedule. I’ll go months writing nothing. Then I’ll bang out a few ideas back-to-back.

Yet there is one thing I intentionally do: Write things that are useful or fun for me, in the hopes they’ll be useful or fun for someone else.

For example, it may take me hours to research, experiment, and solve a problem. I can then take this fresh knowledge and distill it down into an easily transferable format for future-me and others.

Samples #

As of Jan 14, 2022:

Query	Result	Rank
docker gradle build slow	Why Is My Gradle Build in Docker So Slow?	1
imagemagick convert heic to jpg	Convert HEIC Images to JPG	1
mac add user to sudoers	Add Your Account as a Sudoer on Mac	1
shell script to connect to oracle database and execute query	Connect to an Oracle Database and Run a Query From a Bash Script	4
hugo from scratch	Make a Hugo Blog From Scratch	1
bash read arguments from stdin	Passing Input to a Bash Function via Arguments or stdin	1
attention is my most valuable asset for productivity	Attention Is My Most Valuable Asset for Productivity as a Software Developer	1
add chromedriver to path	Download Chromedriver Binary and Add to Your PATH for Automated Functional Testing	3
how to install python without admin rights	Install Python on Windows Without Admin Access	2
shell script to connect to postgresql database and execute query	Connect to a Postgresql Database and Run a Query From a Bash Script	2
install sqlplus on mac	Install SQL*Plus on a Mac	2
grep file extension	Use Grep to Recursively Search for Text for a Given File Extension	5
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install node js without admin rights	Install Node.js on Windows Without Admin Access	2
bash .env file	Set Environment Variables in Your Bash Shell From a .env File	4
fileutils.copyurltofile	Download a File Over HTTPS Using Apache Commons’ FileUtils	7