Posted on July 15th, 2010Google is known for being the king of the search engines, always one step ahead of its competitors. Their advanced constantly changing algorithm and special Page Rank system has made them the most successful search engine history. Google is not only a search engine, but also one of the biggest internet advertising agencies in the world. All of this success occurred because Google catered to the interests and needs of their site visitors. By providing quality search results that are extremely relevant to search phrases. Likewise, Google tries to stay relevant with the times by changing the appearance of their home page on historic events. However, recently, Google officially changed its name to Topeka.
Topeka?
Topeka, Kansas is a small town in the heartland of America that is on the verge of becoming a ghost town. The mayor of Topeka announced that he was going to formally change the name of his town to Google, about a month after Google announced plans for a unique contest. The mayor believed that this gesture would persuade Google to select the town for a contest that would let the winner test a new kind of ultrafast broadband connection. After seeing the benefits of fast broadband with his own eyes, the mayor of Topeka decided to enter the contest and give it his best shot. By changing the name he sent a serious message to a serious company, and his town became famous overnight.
A Historic Day
The event proved to be a tremendous publicity stunt for the town of Topeka, and it has certainly left its mark on history by catching the attention of Google for a day. Google said that they had decided to change their name to Topeka after browsing the City of Topeka’s Municipal Web Site. In fact, Google said they felt a kinship to the city the more they learned about them. Google did not announce any plans to change their name back to the original one that has made them so successful. After about 24 hours Google reclaimed its world famous name, leaving the town of Topeka with a special day in history. In fact, there has never been another case of a massive corporation trading its name with a small town in Kansas.
The Result
The day after the town received the highest amount of searches on Google in their town’s history. People from all over the world wanted to know why Google would choose this small town to trade names with. It seems as if Google may have given the town of Topeka a bit of an economic boost by creating a social stigma about it overnight. Google even changed the sign in front of their headquarters to read “Topeka”. Google has educated the world about hundreds of authors, artists, politicians, scientists, doctors, and leaders of all kinds. Pay attention to the design above the Google search bar the next time you are executing a web search.