Whatever happened to Google’s “I'm Feeling Lucky” button?
Remember back in the early noughties when you searched for a topic on the dial-up internet, it usually brought up pages of unrelated results? You usually had to dig through several pages of results to find something usable. That’s where Google’s “I’m Feeling Lucky” button came in and at the time, it was truly revolutionary – by clicking the button you would automatically be taken to the first web page that returned your query. It was Google’s bold way of saying, “You can trust my results” and meant you could find what you were searching for in one click!
But by 2012, Google had essentially scrapped one of its oldest, quirkiest features after it was estimated the feature cost Google $110 million a year as one per cent of all searches used the “I’m Feeling Lucky” button and therefore bypassed all advertising.
Now the functionality of the button behaves differently and it’s more a marketing tool for Google. If your Google Instant is turned off, clicking the “I’m Feeling Lucky” will take you to the Google Doodles gallery which shows you all the great artwork that’s been incorporated into Google’s logo to honour specific days, people and events – including festivities and birthdays.
If Google Instant is turned on, hovering over the “I’m Feeling Lucky” button, the button text will spin and land on a set of pre-configured phrase that starts with “I'm feeling”. Each phrase links to a Google service related to the associated phrase.
- “I'm Feeling Wonderful” – takes you to the Google World Wonders Project,
- “I'm Feeling Playful” and “I'm Feeling Doodley” – takes you to the Google Doodle page,
- “I'm Feeling Hungry” – searches for restaurants nearby,
- “I'm Feeling Trendy” – takes you to Google Hot Searches,
- “I'm Feeling Stellar” – takes you to Google Earth's explore page,
- “I'm Feeling Puzzled” – takes you to the A Google A Day page,
- “I'm Feeling Artistic” – takes you to Google's Art Project page.
To check if your Google Instant is turned on or off, go to www.google.com/preferences and scroll down to Google Instant predictions.
Image credit: JuliusKielaitis / Shutterstock.com