Googlewhack
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. (Google does not operate this site, although they are aware of it and approve.)
There are a few rules:
- No quotes in the search term.
- The words must be in dictionary.com
- 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 most likely 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:
Since 2003 British comedian Dave Gorman has toured Britain, Australia, Canada and the USA 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 pretending to write a novel for his publisher (Random House) Dave became obsessed with Googlewhacks and travelled 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 Number One Best Seller in the UK and has also been published in Canada and the USA. A translation is, apparently, on its way for Japan.
