A Post No One Will Read
Back in 6th grade, right before graduation, our class wrote rolling papers for each other. Among the messages I received, one line still sticks with me to this day: one friend (at that age… lol) wrote this:
“Hey OOO, stop nitpicking so much. Fix that personality.”
I don’t exactly remember what I was nitpicking about back then, but even after 20 years, that personality hasn’t changed at all. Whenever something happens, I still get curious about the root cause. I can’t help but keep asking “Why?”
That’s why I suddenly transferred from a decent(?) engineering major at a rural university in France to the physics department. (I eventually dropped out.) I once heard the saying, “Top humanities students go to philosophy at Seoul National University, top science students go to physics at Seoul National University.” I wasn’t that smart or that diligent, and my university was far below that level, but I could fully understand why that saying exists. If you keep digging for the root of everything, you end up in philosophy or physics. (Even Elon Musk was obsessed with physics.)
But now, these fields are treated as the ultimate “starvation” majors. Music is similar. K-pop thrives, but the music closest to the roots—classical—has become a “starving” genre.
For someone like me—a visually impaired loner with a strong tendency to pursue “starvation-prone” interests— solo web blogging and development felt like my only option to tinker with logic and thoughts quietly in my room. After building about three blogs and finally starting to post seriously, I realized something:
"Am I once again rambling about topics no one cares about…?"
People who post online, whether on social media or blogs, all share one subconscious thought: “Someone out there might read this.” We say, “Nobody will read this,” yet we still write online instead of in a private journal because, deep down, we hope that “someone” will read it.
I indulged in that hope, writing sincerely and checking search stats for a few days, until it hit me: “Right now, outside in the park, there are so many moms, dads, uncles, aunts, kids… which of them is going to search for and read my post?”
Who among them shares my interests? Who would coincidentally be curious about the same topic? And who would choose the medium of “written posts” and perform a search to solve that curiosity? Hoping “someone out there will read my post” suddenly felt like I was just a slow, naïve fool.
The Irony of Trending Keywords
When a keyword is trending, it means it’s already being widely seen by people. Conversely, if something is widely exposed, it becomes popular. So technically, there’s no need to go hunting for “trending keywords.” Everything that appears in front of our eyes is already trending: news headlines on Naver, related searches that pop up, Google autocomplete suggestions, YouTube trending videos— all of these visible things are already “trending keywords.”
If you want to see these in a more systematic way, use Google Trends. It shows real-time popular search terms and rough search volumes by country, for free.
But what bloggers really want isn’t just “trending keywords.” They want golden keywords: terms that people are searching for but have little to no existing content, so that if you write about them, your post has a high chance of ranking at the top. But no one willingly shares this info, and here’s why.
Reflections on How Markets Work
The word “market” in marketing literally means marketplace. Just laying out products doesn’t create transactions automatically. All the activities that make transactions actually happen are called marketing.
The core of marketing is making transactions between sellers and consumers happen, and any factor that can influence this is part of the process: people’s interests, competitors, reactions to my product, how I promote it, distribution channels, brand image… In the web market, traffic and keywords are the key to understanding all of this.
Every search request goes to Google’s servers, so Google knows exactly how popular any given keyword is. But this info is kept private for three reasons:
Business Value (Trade Secrets)
Search data is Google’s core asset. Revealing exact volumes helps competitors (like Bing, Baidu) plan strategies and lets advertisers research markets without Google ads → loss of revenue.
Privacy Concerns
Search queries are often highly personal—interests, worries, health conditions. Publishing certain keyword data risks identifying individuals in low-volume searches.
Preventing Data Abuse & Market Manipulation
If exact volumes were public: → people could artificially spike searches to manipulate competition → or abuse it for investment, stocks, or political agendas.
That’s why Google only offers rough trends (Google Trends): to show general movement, promote its market relevance, and stimulate the marketing ecosystem around Google.
But How Do Sites Like SimilarWeb Actually Work?
Outside of Google’s free tools, traffic and keyword data is expensive— far beyond the reach of individuals like me. So how do these companies know which sites get how much traffic and what keywords people are searching for?
In reality, without access to Google’s raw data, no one can be 100% accurate. Tools like SimilarWeb, Ahrefs, and SEMrush combine multiple indirect methods to build their statistics.
1. Browser, Plugin, and App Data Collection
Collect anonymized browsing data from users who installed Chrome extensions, free VPNs, security apps, or toolbars.
This estimates which sites they visit, how often, and how long they stay.
2. ISP & Network Partnerships
In some countries, they partner with Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to receive traffic sample data.
No personal data is included—only domain-level and bandwidth access info.
3. Web Crawling & Search Engine Data
Track which sites appear for certain keywords, backlinks, and click patterns to back-calculate traffic.
SEO tools like Ahrefs rely heavily on this.
4. Panel Data, Sampling & Statistical Modeling
Actual collected data is only partial, so statistical models estimate traffic by country and device.
Small sites have large error margins; big sites are more accurate.
Basically, when we use a website or app, many of them include terms allowing data collection. Developers can sell this data, and buyers process it into traffic, keyword, and marketing insights— statistical models refine it into something useful. This isn’t something an individual can do alone. That’s why so many bloggers keep writing blindly, fail to gain exposure, get discouraged, and quit.