Social Question

Seek's avatar

Ok... who ruined all the good Google jokes?

Asked by Seek (34805points) December 28th, 2009
17 responses
“Great Question” (2points)

Seriously.

Who went and took all the fun out of Google? I used to be able to ask for directions from New York to Paris, and be told to drive through the ocean. When I searched “Chuck Norris”, Google informed me that Chuck Norris would find me.

Now… it’s all gone. What gives?

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Answers

Grisaille's avatar

I believe you can still find Link outside Google HQ on Maps.

Other than that, no clue.

toomuchcoffee911's avatar

Chuck Norris still finds you… you just have to hit I’m feeling lucky.

Also, I guess Google felt that if everyone knew about them, they aren’t fun anymore.

And I think Google Maps told you to swim through the ocean.

Snarp's avatar

@toomuchcoffee911 Nope, I’m feeling lucky just gets you to chucknorrisfacts.com.

mrentropy's avatar

I think there comes a time when a company feels they’re too big and important to have a sense of humor.

toomuchcoffee911's avatar

Ah, I was thinking of find Chuck Norris.

Pseudonym's avatar

It’s not that. You have to put ”google chuck norris” or ”find chuck norris” and I’m feeling lucky.

Snarp's avatar

But none of those searches are actually Google jokes, they’re jokes engineered by someone outside of Google. And doesn’t kind of take the funny out of it if you have to search for something so convoluted? Did it ever work with just “Chuck Norris”? I doubt it.

Of course, you can still search for “the answer to the ultimate question of life the universe and everything” and get 42.

toomuchcoffee911's avatar

Or if you Google “number of horns on a unicorn” it calculates it for you.

HungryGuy's avatar

Those joke pages aren’t from Google. For example, if you google Chuck Norrris, the top link of the search result will be a site called http://www.nochucknorris.com/ which looks like a Google search result but is just a page that someone built. Clicking on I’m Feeling Lucky merely takes you to the top item on the Google result page. These joke pages find their way onto the top spot by the use of google bombs (google it) a.k.a. people gaming the google search results (yes, it’s possible) to get their page on the top of a particular search.

HungryGuy's avatar

The most famous google bomb was Weapons of Mass Destruction The page has long gone, but at one time the results page would look like an error message saying “These weapons of mass destruction could not be found…” Of course, the page wasn’t Google at all, but a page that someone built and gamed the google ranking system to cause that page to be the top serarch result.

HungryGuy's avatar

Google actually searches for and “disarms” these Google Bombs when they find them…

Zen_Again's avatar

I got this when I googled find chuck norris (and look at the last bit, lol):

Google won’t search for Chuck Norris because it knows you don’t find Chuck Norris, he finds you.

No standard web pages containing all your search terms were found.

Your search – Chuck Norris – did not match any documents.

Suggestions:

Run, before he finds you
Try a different person

HungryGuy's avatar

@Zen_Again – Make it so.

jerv's avatar

@mrentropy You’d never know it from chatting with them at a GSLUG meeting…

mrentropy's avatar

@jerv I’m just sayin’. I like it when a company, no matter how large or small, shows they have a sense of humor. I find it sad when a company decides they need to be more professional.

jerv's avatar

@mrentropy Ah. /me misread

mrentropy's avatar

@jerv No worries. One of the things I liked about the now-defunct OS, BeOS, was that its web browser would report errors in haiku. At one point, before Be Inc. went under, they were thinking of replacing the haiku errors with regular ones.

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