Why Is This Website Called Google?
August 28th, 2009 | 19,437 views | 16 Comments » | Tweet
Why is Google called Google? Apparently Google thinks I know the answer.
Google loves me. Don’t believe me?
Google loves me so much that they want me to explain why they call themselves Google. Out of over 32 million pages, Feross.org is the #1 result for the query “Why is this website called Google?” (click here to see for yourself!).
See!… they love ME! I told you! And Google chose my April Fools day prank to be #1, because they love my sense of humor, too! (or because the phrase “website called google” appears prominently in the title, but I bet its mostly the first reason).
Ahh… the mysteries of The Google.
Prediction
I want to make a prediction here. That this post that you are reading right now will become #1 for the same query “Why is this website called Google?” within ONE WEEK. If Google liked my off-topic April fools post so much, then they will surely love this post, perfectly titled and targeted for this query.
I will check back in one week and report on this prediction!
Update (9/5/09): It’s been one week!
So, this post fell short of my predictions. It’s currently #2 for said query (screenshot below) losing out to my original April Fool’s post. I guess Google liked the joke much more than I originally thought. 
I still think it will eventually move up to #1, and I’ll update this post when/if it happens!
Update #2 (9/7/2009): This post is number one! 
It only took two more days, but now this post is the #1 result! Not bad SEO, eh? Ten days to position #1.
#1 for "Why is this website called Google!"
Haha way to link to yourself dude. xP
Thanks Caroline. In case you haven’t noticed, I excel at self-promotion.
Just kidding, of course.
Haha. According to Google your entire blog’s the top result…guess it’s just a matter of time!
You’re also the first for “why is this site called Google” (without quotes). Crazyness!
I agree, Ben. I have no idea what the Google algo is doing, but I’ll take it!
On a side note, you should enable comments on your blog. On at least 3 occasions, I’ve tried to leave a comment and been disappointed that comments are turned off!
I really liked your last comic (http://mosscomic.wordpress.com/2009/09/04/security/) about airport security.
It’s been a week! I just updated the post!
haha it’s hilarious feross. please keep on doing cool things!
Two days later, this post is #1 – I just updated the post!
My mom should see it!
Thank you! I would now go on this blog every day!
The result’s still looking good till today…
Good Job…
Interesting experiment. You do some amazing work, but what you fail to mention in your blog post is the fact that this is an extremely long tail keyword with almost 0 competition (and minimal search volume). If anyone picked out a long tail keyword and had a site with PR3-5 (yours has 5) they could rank first for it because no one else has a page for it.
Look at the other results, none of them even contain the phrase. If google ever released a page with that title you’d be gone in a second. You express the fallacy that because there are 32 million results this implies that there is a lot of competition for this term. If you want to know the “true” competition for this term use the Google Keyword Tool or use quotes around your search term (you’ll find theres a whopping 8 results).
I really really respect your work but I had to respond to this one as it is in my field.
Hi Greg – This is a pretty old post. I posted it way back when my blog was still new because I was surprised at two things. First, someone actually searched for “Why is this site called Google?” on Google, and second, Google actually showed my site at #1 in the SERPs.
I know that this isn’t real SEO — mostly just for fun. Although, if you want to see an example of some good unintentional SEO I’ve done, search for ap government and check out my site apstudynotes.org. I haven’t worked on the site in like 3 years, yet it had good fundamentals and slowly worked it’s way up the results unbeknownst to me.
Also – what’s with the rolex watch link? Is that your site?
That saves me. Thanks for being so seinblse!
You are very good web developer as well as expert in SEO. Go ahead.
Best Regards,
Rajesh.
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