Proof of what you already knew

One of the most popular lenses on Squidoo is about a pro wrestler named Rey Mysterio. It happens to be a really good lens, but hey, it's about a guy in a mask.

So why is it getting so much traffic?

It turns out that a Google search ("reymysterio" no spaces) turns up this lens as the second match.

This economy of spelling leads to thousands of organic visits. Most of those visitors leave happy, because the lens tells you just about everything you'd ever want to know about Mr. Mysterio.

The good news for Google investors is that the efficiency of using google.com means that many people (perhaps most people) start their online journey on Google, even if they know the url. (www.reymysterio.com is a site about the wrestler). That's one reason why ads on a search page are worth so much more than ads in most other places online... you reach people on their way to somewhere else. But you already knew that.

When we were developing Squidoo, I can assure you that no time whatsoever was spent discussing how we might attract the pro wrestler community. But the long tail is once again at work, and if Squidoo succeeds, it will be because of the proximity of tens of thousands of topics just like this one.