Subscribe by EmailUnbelievable Google suggestions
June 6, 2008 by Mark O'Neill | 27 commentsBy Mark O’Neill
One of the features I like the most in Google is the suggestions feature when you are typing in your keywords. But sometimes you come across some really crazy and outrageous suggestions. I mean, look at these ones….
81,300 pages for that?
Yes, many a long and cold night, I have tapped away at Google, searching for the solution to that riddle. But still the answer eludes me….
You don’t need Google to tell you that one! I suppose it all depends on the class of girl you’re dating! Nice girls don’t fart (apparently) while guys just fart away ALL the time…
Now you may say this is just my imagination but Google searchers seem to have an unhealthy obsession with black people! First with black kids in the cafeteria and now this? Why are black people black? What the hell? And are there really 51.9 million pages on the subject?
- Google Rolls out Google Suggest
- Google introduces Digg-style voting buttons
- Google and American Idol’s creator making out?
- Google Chrome 2.0 Released
“Why are all the black kids sitting together in the cafeteria” is a book title (Link to book on amazon.com).
As for the other ones, no idea.
The one I find baffling is the 704 pages for “Why don’t dildos obey ohm’s law?”
I’m sorry it’s 4 am here and I haven’t slept for a few days that says diodes not dildos. lol now i feel dumb
well we can see whats on your mind at 4 am
funny stuff.
I’d argue, about your last question, that google search result numbers are not always a good metric. Especially in this case, with an unquoted question that uses very general terms like black and people. Of course it’s going to have a lot of results. Probably less than one tenth of a percent of these results will actually tackle the issue at hand.
I have to agree. These searches aren’t being done for an exact phrase. They’re being done for a series of short, common keywords, so you’re bound to get odd results.
Good laugh, though.
I was coming here to let you know about the book title but I see someone beat me to it. It’s actually a great book.
Regarding the 52 million results for [why are black people black], it’s because unless the query is in quotes it just matches words, so saying ‘black’ twice is redundant. This is actually just saying there are 52 million pages that have the words ‘why’ ‘are’ ‘black’ and ‘people’ in them.
The search for ["why are black people black"] yields only 7 thousand results, not 52 million.
I have noted that the suggestion list is fluid based on ever changing inputs by the jillions of google users. The suggested topics highlighted are already missing from my list.
But awesome article, and thanks for the laughs!
Very funny and intesting stuff about google. Is it true?
True.. but only in part, these results are generated using certain stats.. since these stats evolve all the time, typing certain queries will bring you different results at certain points of the day…
You often end up with stuff even MORE hilarious than what we listed here.
This is a crazy Post Keep…..This is so true
I use the Google search plugin for Firefox, and when I type in “Why are B” the first result is “Why are black people more athletic?”
I like this post! A few people hate Google suggests, but this makes it worthwhile sometimes eh? wondering what other people are searching. Cool
i like those suggestion most of them are funny :D
Well, while the questions may seem to be stupid or just plain dumb, for many people the fact that you can anonomously ask a question has a great attraction. Why are black people black? I can imagine a 12 year old asking that, maybe it is part of a science project on skin! Do dogs have a belly button? Can you see it? No, of course they have one but to a young teen it may not be so obvious. The numbers of people looking at or searching for that information is a bit odd but hey! Google is the number one search engine.
Have you never thought about things that may be obvious to others but unexplainable to yourself… Why is the sky blue? Why does the sea have waves? Why is there snow at the poles? etc
Give people a break. No one knows all the answers.
Haha. That made me laugh, I’m officially a geek now. My favourite question “Why are black people black?” completely legit question right? This post made me laugh though, nice work.
Dwayne Charrington.
Thricescene.com
The first one is the title of a book dude !!!!!
i give it a thumbs up.
How are the suggestions chosen to the list? I mean, what if someone types “FIRSTNAME LASTNAME IS IDIOT HAHAHAHA” and then it shows up at suggestions? :D You could use it to illegal purposes even. Scary.
I bet I know why black people show up so much. One word: 4chan.
I actually just stumbled upon this. It’s a fun little game. You can start with something like ‘How’ or ‘How to’ and then add an ‘a’ and go all the way down the alphabet. There’s something a little off the wall in each list. With ‘e’ for instance, the first result for me was ‘how to eat a girl out.’
‘c’ you’ll see ‘how to commit suicide.’
‘k’ you’ll see ‘how to kill yourself.’
I also saw the part about black people and thought it was funny so just typed ‘why are black.’ Being a black guy I found it hilarious that at the bottom, one of the suggestions was ‘why are black people so loud.’ LOL!
I got why are women crazy, why are white people so racist, why are jews so hated, and why are some women taking viagra.
also when i just type why, the first result is why so serious.
My daughter asked me “do trees have mums”
Lol, brilliant.
Funniest thing I’ve read in a long time, literally rolling around with laughter
it depends on the popularity of the phrase. if the same phrase was entered for i.e. million times, it will be picked up and suggested to you automatically to save your time. Google has no prejudice, only numbers.