March 23, 2004

Did you know I'm a Googlewhack?


I didn't either until a guy emailed me and told me. I was a little taken aback, to say the least. I wasn't sure if I was being insulted, complimented, or what. Anyway, a little googling of my own, and I was pretty sure that it wasn't a bad thing.

Here is what a Googlewhack is according to Wikipedia:

A Googlewhack is a query consisting of two words (with no quote marks) entered into Google's search page that returns a single result. Googlewhacking is the pastime of finding such a result. A person attempting to find 'Googlewhacks' is known as a Googlewhacker.

The game first appeared on the web as part of Steve White's blog in August of 2002. The first person to coin the term "Google whacking" appears to be Gary Stock. A person finding a googlewhack can log it at googlewhack.com.

There are a few rules:

  1. No quotes in the search term.

  2. The words must be in dictionary.com

  3. The found page must be a real article and not a list of words.
A problem/dilemma arises when a person finds a "googlewhack" and subsequently reports it somewhere on the web, as the "googlewhack" will no longer count as a googlewhack as the page where its reported will get "indexed" by google, rendering the googlewhack obsolete.

Some fans of the craze have gone so far as create tools that will automatically find googlewhacks, though some consider the tools an example of unsportsmanly behaviour.

Example: As of March 14, 2003, the search "Hottentot Antigony" produced only one result: [1]

So I'm assuming it's a cool thing to have a site with a Googlewhack. Anyway, I didn't know it at the time, but I had noticed an unusual search for in my sitemeter referrals. ;) But if I post it, it will then cease to be a Googlewhack.

Update: I got a reply from Heath who found the Googlewhack. He wished me congratulations on being truly 1 in 3 billion. I think he deserves the praise, as he is the one who found the Googlewhack. Thank you for giving me something to blog about, Heath!

Posted by 2Flower at March 23, 2004 11:35 PM | TrackBack
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