Flag-waving

Who knows where the page-views come from?  Since January last year The Blob has attracted 25,000ish PVs of 470ish posts. I recognise that some of these articles are of less than universal interest and should sink beneath the rough and unforgiving waves of the interweb, but I am bemused when something rather trivial or whimsical that I've written attracts a clatter of attention. I've thundered about things so much more important than Vexillology, the science of flags, although I have had a few things to say on that colourful subject:

• Nordic cross (quiz!)
• Herring Salad [SE+NO]
• Mountain markers
• Дніпропетровськ [Ukreire]
• Vimy Ridge
• Saluting the flag
• Kiwi Koru S.Cross
• Ozzie Flags 
• Shackleton
• Stars and bars
• St Piran of Kernow 
• Y Wladfa Gymreig
• La Bandera Asturiana
• Cabo Verde
• International students
• Shandon catenary
• Split, Croatia
• Macedonia
• More Macedon
• Γαλανόλευκη [GK blue and white
• Portugal = Mayo
• Calatrava, Order of

So I was surprised when one of these old pieces recently made a bit of a spike in the page-view logs. That set me off investigating down an interweb rabbit-hole until I popped up in another VIBE: "the new website of Vexillology Ireland : Brateolaíocht Éireann published by the Genealogical Society of Ireland".  I say another VIBE, because the real VIBE is my own professional society the Virtual Institute of Bioinformatics and Evolution.  Google agrees and puts The Binf above An Bratach, indeed Google puts a Mullingar Tattoo-parlour above the Irish Vexillologists.  But of course your mileage may vary at www.google.mars  because google thinks it knows what you want and will deliver those hits first. Maybe there is a games console supplier in Ukraine called VIBE but that will only be google-apparent to people in Kiev.