On September 15, 1997, Google registered its domain and began its climb to the top of the search engine ladder. It began as a simple search engine, but since then it has seen immense growth as it continues to develop platforms and services through its parent company, Alphabet. There is a certain nostalgia attached to Google Search, and the company regularly includes little tidbits with the feature that people find fun: Easter Eggs.
Let’s take a look at some of the jokes that Google has used for their Easter Eggs over the years. Maybe you’ll see one or two that you didn’t know about!
Look, We Just Can’t Cover All of the Easter Eggs Here, and That’s Okay
Considering how long Google has been at it with these Easter eggs, it should come as no surprise that we can’t possibly cover them all in one blog article. There’s just too many of them, and some aren’t active any longer either. Some of them were associated with a specific day, like the “2/22/22” event, which issued a “Happy Twosday 2You!” to the user. Others, like those associated with the “Goooooo….gle” page indicator, don’t work any longer because Google has adopted an infinite scroll format.
That said, there are still plenty of them to mess around with. For example, try googling “Barbie” and see what happens. Here are some of the more fun Easter eggs still active at this time of writing:
A Tiny Sample of Google’s Easter Eggs
- Searching for “dvd screensaver” will cause the Google logo in the top left corner to begin bouncing around the screen, changing colors as it goes, similarly to—you guessed it—the screensaver that DVD players would display after remaining idle for too long.
- Searching for “text adventure” and then using the Ctrl+Shift+J shortcut to open the developers console will give you access to a Google-themed text-based adventure game, where you set out in search of the letters in the word “Google.” As a bonus Easter egg within an Easter egg, responding “no” to the introductory prompt “would you like to play a game” produces a reference to the 1983 movie WarGames.
- Searching for “puppy/puppies/dog/canine” or “kitten/cat” will produce a button that, when clicked, will cause a paw belonging to the corresponding animal to swipe up and leave a paw print behind.
- Searching for “define anagram” asks you if you meant to search for “nerd fame again,” which itself is an anagram of “define anagram.”
- Searching for “pi” will produce the Google calculator with the pi symbol prominent. Clicking it will start a memory game that takes the player through the digits of pi.
- Searching for “meteor shower” will darken the screen momentarily as three meteors pass by, shifting back to the way it was once they have passed.
- Searching for “netwon/Isaac Newton” will produce a button with an apple tree on it, which causes an apple to fall down the screen when clicked, just as the legend goes about how the physicist conceptualized the theory of gravity.
- Searching for “han/greedo shot first” will show the alternate result, posed as a “Did you mean” at the top of the screen.
- Searching for “the one ring” will ask if you meant “my precioussss,” in a nod to Gollum from The Lord of the Rings.
- Searching for “world’s best boss” will ask “Did you mean Michael Scott” as a reference to Steve Carell’s character from The Office.
- Searching for “breathing exercise” will pull up a functional breathing exercise that you can follow along with.
- Searching for “pac-man/google pacman/play pacman” will pull up a functioning game of Pac-Man with a board designed around the Google logo.
- Searching for “the answer to the ultimate question of life the universe and everything" brings up the Google Calculator, presenting the answer “42.” This is a reference to the Douglas Adams novel The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, and has been around since the first Easter eggs were developed—even predating the calculator feature it now appears in.
This is Just a Small Sample of What Google Has Hidden Away
There are more than these Easter eggs, obviously, and we always like to encourage users to look for them. Developers often hide fun things like this in their services, so it’s always a treat when you make a fresh discovery.