Encountering Yourself on the Web

I spend a good 50 percent of my actual writing time working on SEO articles. It’s not the most glamorous work in the world, but the projects are easy to slip in between my daughter’s demands for attention and the pay is pretty good. I suspect quite a few freelancers are in a similar boat.

Overall, I’ve probably written several hundred SEO articles and web content documents. Some of my work I keep a close eye on (for example, I know which keyword-specific articles of mine land on the front page of Google – potential clients love to see that stuff), but I can hardly keep track of all the miscellaneous little tidbits I’ve written over the past year.

Well, I was searching on the web the other day for some information on gardening supplies (okay, it wasn’t really gardening supplies, but I’m trying to preserve some semblance of confidentiality here). I came across a pretty cheap looking website with what appeared to me to be some phenomenal text. At first, I felt a twinge of writer envy – that green-eyed monster that hits me every time I read something I like, making me simultaneously think that: a) I wished I could write that well; b) I should have been hired for that particular job, since I could have done it, too; and c) I have no hopes of ever being really successful as a writer, since everyone else is so much better than I.

I kept on reading, feeding that particular monster of mine, when all of a sudden I thought, “Hmm…this sounds awfully familiar.” Then it dawned on me that I actually had been the writer for that particular website. I perused a little more and realized that I wrote most of that site’s content.

Clients can be secretive creatures, and I’m okay with that. While I know exactly how my writing is being used most of the time, there are a few clients who would rather give me an assignment, pay me, and move on. Since I am a ghostwriter by trade and almost never get a byline attached to my work, I have no qualms about this. In fact, I often get the giggles when I see where some of my stuff ends up and who is claiming the credit for it (reason #587 why the Internet is not a reliable research resource). This site happened to be one of those circumstances.

However, that got me interested in the rest of my past work. Of course, I spent the next few hours chasing that shiny penny instead of doing actual work. I found myself on Buzzle, E-Zine, random websites all over the place, what were obviously stolen duplicate articles, and varied blogs. Some of these blogs even sparked quite a discussion in the comments section - oftentimes with follow-up responses from the “writer” of the piece. I also discovered that in some cases, I couldn’t find myself at all - several of my SEO articles simply aren’t online (either that or I just can’t find them).

Overall, I’m pretty impressed with my mark on the Internet. Sure, there are thousands of articles popping up every day. But the fact that my words can be found on the loading page of Google or simply during a random search makes me feel a little famous.