Google is in hot water today over some search results on its Maps pages, after it was discovered that a search for “nigger king” brings up the White House as a result. The company apologised, but not before other awkward results were discovered: in London, for instance, a search for “shit hole” brings up Tottenham Hotspur’s football ground.
It is a law of the internet that any story involving weird search results eventually leads to people vanity searching, and sure enough, that’s what we did. And the results were interesting.
If you type my name, Alex Hern, into Google, it brings you, not to the Guardian, where I work (which would make sense), but to the pub in London Bridge where I play the card game Netrunner most weeks. To the best of my knowledge, I’ve been linked online to that pub once, ever.
Similarly, my colleague Samuel Gibbs found that his name takes him to Imperial College, his old university – but again, somewhere he’s not widely linked to online.
Intrigued, we took it to social media, and found more strange results:
A friend, Charlotte Geater, is linked to her old Oxford college:
@alexhern if you type me in you get my college at oxford, wtf, why is this a thing
— charlotte geater (@tambourine) May 20, 2015
Artist Jamie McKelvie is linked to the comic shop Gosh! in Soho:
@alexhern holy shit pic.twitter.com/VuVyn7ij91
— Jamie McKelvie (@McKelvie) May 20, 2015
And Vice journalist Joel Golby, future prime minister, is somehow located in 10 Downing Street:
@alexhern ALEX I JUST TYPED MY NAME IN AND IT WENT STRAIGHT TO 10 DOWNING STREET
— Joel Golby (@joelgolby) May 20, 2015
Citymetric editor Jonn Elledge is pinned to his old publication, Londonist:
@alexhern Okay, I assumed this was some kind of joke, but I put my name into Google Maps and this happened pic.twitter.com/J07UAYLQTQ
— Jonn Elledge (@JonnElledge) May 20, 2015
While BuzzFeed writer Robin Edds, author of The 41 Most British Things That Have Ever Happened, gets linked to … Things British, a shop in St Pancras Station.
All in all: faintly baffling. Sometimes it makes sense, sometimes it makes sense but is super creepy (HOW DO THEY KNOW) and sometimes you just have to ask what Google is thinking.
Try it with your own names, and post what you find below. We’ll get to the bottom of this!
Update:
Alicia Melville-Smith gets placed in a restaurant she’s been to before:
@alexhern I just did it with my Twitter handle & it came up with a restaurant I went to last week for the first time. CREEPY
— AliciaMelville-Smith (@alicia_ms) May 20, 2015
Robert Perry’s results are even creepier:
@alexhern Mine offers me three choices: Where I went to university My former employer WHERE I AM RIGHT NOW
— Robert Perry (Pez) (@pez_sez) May 20, 2015
And Thom Phipps discovers another benefit of the service’s search abilities:
wow pic.twitter.com/yTOySidyJP
— thom (@thwphipps) May 20, 2015
Coincidentally, Australian cybersecurity journalist Asher Wolf started a similar exploration of the topic just two days ago, searching for Twitter handles instead of full names:
Google Maps, why you do this? pic.twitter.com/cmjd2hIvqZ
— Asher Wolf (@Asher_Wolf) May 18, 2015
Wolf says she was inspired by @opticaldensity:
Hahaha...when i type in @HouseCracka to Gmaps.....Cell Block Electronics and Cellular http://t.co/Psg5YPG8HC
— 1nvisibleman (@opticaldensity) May 18, 2015
.@thejaymo @Asher_Wolf Apparently, Google thinks I’m a charming little “erotic massage” parlor in Schleswig-Holstein. pic.twitter.com/YsS2mz2zDg
— William Ball (@ekstasis) May 18, 2015
@Quasilocal @Asher_Wolf mine pins me at Mortgage Success in Wollongong where I got my mortgage sorted 12 months ago!?
— dane 丹 (@GreenEpidemic) May 18, 2015
And her exploration prompted writer Henk van Ess to delve deep into the topic:
Type in a name of a living person and Google Maps will try to match your name to a databases based on data of a local Chambers of Commerce or a similar source. This handy feature only works if the person is registered as part of a company, organisation, university or foundation.
If someone is not in the database, you often get results anyway. The reason: Google Maps tries to guess a name that is close to the one you used. So always concentrate on the logic of the answer.
Of course, that still doesn’t explain how Google knows where I play Netrunner…
