What are some funny "related searches"?

November 29, 2008 1:16 PM

I'm trying to come up with humorous examples of search engines making query suggestions. For example, Google might suggest "how to cook a baby" when you search for "baby". I've seen some posted around the internet before, but can't seem to find them now. Does anyone have such links/examples? They don't have to be currently working examples.
posted by lpctstr; to computers & internet (15 comments total)

If you searched for "failure", the first link used to be to whitehouse.gov. Is that what you are talking about or more like these?
posted by Ugh at 2:39 PM on November 29, 2008

Ugh: Neither one exactly. I'm referring to the "Related searches" links on Google when you search. For example, the "failure" query actually suggests "h1b official website" in the "Searches related to: failure" section in the bottom. So I guess I'm just generally looking for things similar to that. The google suggest website has some good ideas though. Thanks!
posted by lpctstr; at 2:43 PM on November 29, 2008

I love this one.

Search google for:
"two plus two equals fve" with no quotes.

It'll suggest:

"Did you mean: 'two plus two equals five'?"
posted by Precision at 2:51 PM on November 29, 2008

The old sidebar adverts on Google would routinely display whatever keywords you were searching on in the advert. So you could search on something like "Ebola outbreak" and the sidebar ad would go "Get Ebola cheap on Ebay now!" or something similar. They've since made them a little smarter but you can still sometimes get a doozy if you use a rare term that isn't in their blacklist dictionary.
posted by ninazer0 at 3:02 PM on November 29, 2008

Oh, there was also the Google search "Great French military victories" and Google would go "Did you mean great French military defeats?"
posted by ninazer0 at 3:03 PM on November 29, 2008

Here and here. Search "google suggests."
posted by glibhamdreck at 3:15 PM on November 29, 2008

Oh, I do remember one of those. I don't know how PC it is but if you searched for morons it used to ask if you meant Mormons. Here's another.
posted by Ugh at 4:16 PM on November 29, 2008

The French Military one was a joke. More here.
posted by ALongDecember at 4:37 PM on November 29, 2008

if you type in short vague words into the Search toolbar in Firefox, Google provides other popular searches that begin with what you've entered.

for instance, "huge":

Huge balls
Huge rack
Huge spiders
Huge Hefner

Sort of an amusing game of word association. It's like a single-player Family Fortunes or something.
posted by so_necessary at 5:03 PM on November 29, 2008

Something like this? (For certain values of "humourous")
posted by birdsquared at 5:21 PM on November 29, 2008

Steve of thesneeze.com typed in "World's Fattest Twins" and got "Do you mean, "The world's hottest twins?" link
posted by artychoke at 5:28 PM on November 29, 2008

In the same vein as so_necessary, type is and a space into the search bar and look at the recommended searches.
posted by MadamM at 6:28 PM on November 29, 2008

There's an amusing one here about halfway down. (Link contains nsfw language.)
posted by the latin mouse at 2:08 PM on November 30, 2008

This might be of interest to you.
posted by arcanecrowbar at 1:36 PM on December 1, 2008

"how is baby formed"
posted by vsync at 2:49 PM on December 1, 2008