If you haven’t called anyone a Bastard yet, at least in your head, you are probably from another planet! Bastard is perhaps one of the most versatile word used in the English language. It can be used as a verb, adverb, or noun in countless ways. When you are angry “I hate that Bastard”, when you like something someone did, “I loooove that Bastard.”
You can find many definitions of this word in the Dictionary. But I am not here to go over the definition, this post is about a search engine feature that has given birth to a whole new generation of web made Bastards.
It’s about Autocomplete, a well know feature in many search engines. This is how it works – when you start typing in a keyword within the search box, major engines like Google will offer you suggestions even before you complete typing the word. See below what happens when you type the names of some known people:
Funny, I don’t know? But the suggestions are generated based on other peoples search activities. In other words, it’s a reflection of what people are thinking today.
Google started testing auto complete way back in 2004 and made it available to its users in 2008. The feature lets you connect to the information you are looking for in a much faster way.
Now if you thought only well know people got pulled, you are wrong, because below is how we collectively think about ourselves.
On a more technical note, auto complete suggestions can vary by location. If you are in Delhi and search for “Pizza”, it will give you a different set of suggestions than when you are in New York.
More recently, Google launched Google Instant, it not only gives out suggestions, it also shows results for popular searches as soon as you start typing in your search terms. Results change dynamically as you type.
Now for a moment imagine if some of these well know people had their own websites. What if you typed “Bastard”, and their websites showed on search results…? Holy cow, now you know what I mean by web made bastards!
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PS: The article is just a fun way to educate the user on search engine features and in no way intended to single out anyone.