Google and God are a lot alike. Both work in mysterious ways. Both are unfair. And apologists are quick to defend both, because without them the universe (or at least SEO) has no meaning.
Because we have utmost faith in the wisdom of Google, we decided to input the 26 letters of the alphabet into Google Web search to see what links would earn St. Peter's gate key (we mean the "No. 1 position.")
Here are the results:
- A = Google Finance page for Agilent Technologies Inc.
- B = Physical Review B: Condensed Matter and Materials Physics
- C = Google Finance page for Citigroup Inc.
- D = Google Finance page for Dominion Resources Inc.
- E = E! Online
- F = Google Finance page for Ford Motor Company
- G = Gmail login page
- H = Wikipedia entry for "hydrogen"
- I = iPod/iTunes section of Apple Web site
- J = Wikipedia entry for the letter "J"
- K = Google Finance page for Kellogg Company
- L = Wikipedia entry for the letter "L"
- M = IMDb page for the 1931 German film noir starring Peter Lorre
- N = The N, a nighttime network for teens
- O = O, The Oprah Magazine
- P = An instructional page about HTML on the site of December.com
- Q = Google Finance page for Qwest Communications International
- R = The R Project for Statistical Computing
- S = Google Finance page for Sprint Nextel Corporation
- T = Google Finance page for AT&T Inc.
- U = University of Arizona home page
- V = Wikipedia entry for the '80s television series
- W = W Hotels section of the Starwood Hotels Web site
- X = Google Finance page for U.S. Steel Corporation
- Y = Yahoo! Mail login page
- Z = Wikipedia entry for the letter "Z"
We know we're mere mortals, but these returns do raise a few questions:
1. How come the movie M beats the letter M, but the letter Z beats the movie Z?
2. What's the deal with all the Google Finance results? You'd almost suspect Google had some kind of financial interest in the site.
3. Is Wikipedia a better dictionary than Merriam-Webster, and a better encyclopedia than Britannica? According to God (we mean Google) it is -- by a wide margin.
And funny -- but in 26 searches, we got back only three references to the letters themselves or to the alphabet that comprises them. Could it be that Google sometimes misses the forest for the trees?
Bah! That kind of talk can only lead to chaos.
Best that we teach our children a new ABC Song for the age of Google. Does anyone know a word that rhymes with "Google Finance"?
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