The refrigerator magnet mystery

My referral log shows four visits today as a result of this query: research with circle hole magnets. It presents so many interesting questions to divert me from writing the column that's due today!

  1. What was really intended? Maybe magnets "circular holes"?

  2. Does anybody out there get the difference between magnets circular holes and magnets "circular holes"?

  3. There were four clickthroughs to my page -- The analog hole -- from this query? Wasn't it evident, after the first, that it doesn't even mention magnets?

  4. Why is the cached version of the found page empty?

  5. Why is the found content:
    ... My refrigerator magnets still don't receive weather reports, but when they do, we'll ... CEO and Research Chair of the Burton Group, Jamie is a longtime industry ...
    actually from another item, Playing the Internet scales?

  6. Why does the "refrigerator magnets" blurb appear in the summary of other pages too?
    Jon Udell: My conversation with Mr. Safe
    ... My refrigerator magnets still don't receive weather reports, but when
    they do, we'll need something like PreCache to make them work. ...
    weblog.infoworld.com/udell/2003/06/27.html - 101k - Cached - Similar pages

I can't answer questions 1 through 4, but I've got a hunch about what's happening with 5 and 6. Try this query: refrigerator magnets. The Atomz search engine, which I formerly used to search my blog locally (but never discontinued when I switched to InfoWorld's UltraSeek engine) appears to have suffered some kind of aphasia. When you search for "refrigerator magnets" it finds hundreds of articles, and uses the same summary for each. Doesn't happen with any other query I try, only "refrigerator magnets" (or "refrigerator" or "magnets"). Cool, huh?

Now, did Google find this refrigerator magnetized page? If it did, how exactly did the "refrigerator magnet" summarization glitch infect Google? By linking to that wacky Atomz query, from this posting, will I make all my Google summaries be about refrigerator magnets?

Alas, my deadline looms, so the answers to these pressing questions will have to wait.

Former URL: http://weblog.infoworld.com/udell/2004/03/25.html#a954