Googlewhack

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A Googlewhack is a Google search query consisting of two words--both of which must be in Google's dictionary, and without quotation marks--that returns a single result. A successful Googlewhack returns 'Results 1-1 of 1'. Googlewhacking is the pastime of seeking such a result. A person attempting to find a Googlewhack is known as a Googlewhacker.

History

The "Googlewhack" game first appeared on the web at the UnBlinking site on 8 January 2001, the term being coined by Ronald McDonald. The Whack Stack at googlewhack.com was set up to allow the collection of user-submitted Googlewhacks.

Some Googlewhackers have gone so far as to create tools that will automatically find Googlewhacks, although most players consider the use of such tools unsportsmanlike.

Cultural references

Since 2003, British comedian Dave Gorman has toured Britain, France, Australia, Canada and the United States with a show entitled Dave Gorman's Googlewhack Adventure, and published a book of the same name. These were based on a true story. While attempting to write a novel for his publisher (Random House) Dave became obsessed with Googlewhacks and traveled across the world finding people who had authored them. Although he never wrote his novel, he did eventually write a book about his "Googlewhack adventure" which went on to be a Sunday Times #1 best seller in the UK and has also been published in the U.S. and Canada. A translation is in the works for Japan.[1]

Some of the googlewhacks used by Dave Gorman in his book are Francophile Namesakes, dork turnspit, unconstructive superegos, bibliophilic sandwiched, dripstone ingles.

Participants at Googlewhack.com discovered the sporadic "cleaner girl" bug in Google's search algorithm where "results 1-1 of thousands" were returned for two relatively common words. Further details can be found at: Googlewhack NACK!

Problems

A problem/dilemma arises when a person finds a Googlewhack and subsequently reports it somewhere on the web: the Googlewhack will no longer be viable, as the page where it is reported will probably be indexed by Google, rendering the Googlewhack obsolete, unless it is blocked by robots.txt. For example, "The Whack Stack" at googlewhack.com is not indexed by Google.

Example: As of March 3, 2005, the search "adieu halitosi" produced only one result: [2] (Although it now returns more matches, one of which is this article, the rest mirrors.) "Adieu halitosi" is not a true googlewhack, though, because "halitosi" does not link to dictionary.com.

Variations

New Scientist has discussed the idea of a Googlewhackblatt, which is similar to a Googlewhack however it involves finding a single word that produces only one google result. Lists of these have become available, but as with Googlewhacks they result in the Googlewhackblatt status of the word being destroyed - unless it is blocked by robots.txt or the word doesn't produce any Google results before it is added to the list, thus forming the Googlewhackblatt Paradox. Those words that do not produce any Google search results at all are known as Antegooglewhackblatts before they are listed - and subsequently elevated to Googlewhackblatt status if it is not blocked by robots.txt.

Feedback stories are also available on the New Scientist website, thus resulting in the destruction of any existing Googlewhackblatts that are ever printed in the magazine. Antegooglewhackblatts that are posted on the Feedback website become known as Feedbackgooglewhackblatts as their Googlewhackblatt status is created.

In addition, New Scientist has more recently discovered another way to obtain a googlewhackblatt without falling into the Googlewhackblatt Paradox. One can write the googlewhackblatt on a website, but backwards, and then search on elgoog to view the list properly while still keeping the googlewhackblatt's status as a googlewhackblatt.

It is important to note that in contrast to Googlewhacks, many Googlewhackblatts and Antegooglewhackblatts are nonsense words that cannot presently and probably will never be found in a dictionary.

External links

• Googlewhack.com