I regularly search Google for my unique handle on the web to see who’s caring/linking these days.  Also at Technorati.  I primarily search for the word “xagronaut” because there is no other word on the Internet that can be mistaken for my handle.   No overlap of meaning or acronym or first and last name.  Nope.  “Xagronaut.”  That’s me and nobody else.

I also get some play on searching for my Radio UserLand “usernum” (0113822).  There is some noise along with that signal though, so the results are not totally pure.  Most of the results I find this way are automated services.

In Search of a Unique Name
I wasn’t satisfied with a handle until it was rather distinctive.  “Jeff Miller” isn’t very distinctive if you think about it.  “xagronaut”–well, there’s nothing like quite like that.  Unfortunately, it’s hard to write for all audiences under a moniker like that.  Yes, I value my religious beliefs highly, and yes, “xag” and “xagronaut” are inherently tied to that.

I don’t know if that scares away (turns off) most techie readers.  I don’t feel as though I should feel ashamed of my beliefs.  I’m just thinking I can better address the two distinct audiences I’m writing for if I separate the content appropriately.  However, both elements are part of who I am, and those cannot be separated.

Back to Google counts
My Google count has hovered at about 450 - 800 for a while.  I occasionally find a new link added that wasn’t there before.  Well, all of a sudden, my Google counts jumped to 2540.  And, no, it’s not because I suddenly made the blogger “A-list” (psffsstf!  My best raspberry sound ;-).  It’s because more and more people are using automated tools for indexing weblogs and cross-referencing referrers.  So while my Google counts are expanding, it still does not look like many non-machines/humans care than did when I was around the 450 mark.  Oh, well.  At least I know the spiders are reading my blog.  Thanks guys.  I hope you enjoy my encoding.