Being a self confessed internet addict I tend to have a knack of finding some of the many ‘website Easter eggs’ (i.e. a hidden message on a website often called a virtual Easter egg) that appear every so often – usually to accompany some major event or marketing gimmick.
Leading the way with these internet Easter eggs at the moment appears to be Google.
The Big G’s eggs range from playable online games (like during the London Olympics) to their weird and wonderful April Fool’s pranks – like the Google Pigeon Rank technology, which despite its age still makes me chuckle to this day.
As you can image, the Christmas holidays provide an ample opportunity to provide another egg to unwrap for the many millions of unsuspecting internet users.
So take a bow Google with their latest offering – Christmas decorations! Did you know that any Christmas related search with the Google search engine will provide you with not only the search results you want but some Christmas lights as well!
Here’s an example screenshot for a Google search for ‘Christmas’…
And another one using the search term ‘Christmas Pudding’:
Now before anyone cries foul and accuses me of some image enhancement courteously of Photoshop – I can assure you the above images are genuine (my Photoshop skills aren’t anywhere good enough for it to be otherwise!).
But if you’re still unconvinced, then fire up your favorite web browser and head off over to google.co.uk and try a Christmas related search for yourself 🙂
Unfortunately – much to my disappointment – the Big G seems to have overlooked the minor issue of “Christmas” in other languages, such as Welsh or Spanish for example.
So a search for ‘Navidad’ or ‘Nadolig’ proves fruitless and sadly we’re left with the bog standard non-seasonal search results as shown below.
Maybe by next year Google will have made a few tweaks to their search algorithms (again!) and we’ll have an internationally recognised Christmas related search decorations.
Failing that the Big Guy himself from the North Pole is going to have a word with Larry and his helpers.
Merry Christmas everyone – Nadolig Llawen pawb