Ken Larsen's web site - Google Fame

 

On November 12, 2019 I did a Google search on my name.  Here is what was returned by Google: 

 

 

14,500,000 results were returned by Google.  Of those 14,500,000 results, my home page was returned #1, and a secondary page on my website was #2.

Conclusion:  In the eyes of Google, I'm the most famous Ken Larsen on the planet!

 

 

 

Note that Google not only returned links to my website, it returned the fact that I endorsed Jessica Anderson, Nancy Oates, and Renuka Soll.  I have tons of stuff on my website, and Google regarded my endorsements of Jessica, Nancy, and Renuka as being the most significant part.

 

How many people on our planet could have found out about my endorsements if they had simply done a Google search on "Ken Larsen"? 

 

Answer:  3.8 billion

 

It's estimated that half of the people on our planet (7.7 billion) have internet access.  All anyone of them would had to have done was do a Google search on "Ken Larsen". 

 

Nancy and Renuka should have worn "Endorsed by Ken Larsen" stickers.  Neither did, and they each lost by just a handful of votes (Nancy lost by 24 votes; Renuka by 85.)

 

Follow-up

 

I asked a few people to try my experiment on their phones. 

 

November 11, 2019:  I attended a public viewing of the transit of Mercury at the Morehead Planetarium.  About 10 telescopes were aimed at the sun with members of the public lined up on each one.  I stood away from the telescopes with a notebook in my hand.  I showed one guy printouts I had that compared a 2016 transit of Mercury to the 2012 transit of Venus.  He reached for his phone to take a picture of my pictures, and I told him to just go to my website.  I told him that he could find it by doing a Google search on "Ken Larsen".  He tried it, and my website came right up.  That impressed him so much, that he began telling other people about me.  Word spread and people began taking pictures and videos of me.  In the end, a group of about 12 wanted a group photo ... with me in the middle.  That was super cool.  I felt like a rock star.  Amusingly, I don't work for the Planetarium.  I was there because of my love of astronomy.

 

November 13, 2019: Federico Ramirez, a sophomore at MIT, called me to solicit a donation to MIT.  In the course of our conversation I mentioned my website.  He was curious and wanted to know its address.  I told him to just do a Google search on my name ("Ken Larsen").  He did, it came right up. 

 

November 17, 2019 from my good friend Lynne Trussell:   I did this, and had our local guy/tour leader do it also from his phone.  We got identical results -- #1, a link to Ken Larsen Profiles / Facebook, and #2, a link to Ken Larsen's Website / Home Page.

 

Lynne wrote this from New Zealand!

November 22, 2019:  I Google just my last name, "Larsen".  Google returns 135 million results.  My website is 10th! 


Ken Larsen's home page