Google Easter Eggs: Sweet Treats Hidden in Plain Sight

We all know Google as a search engine giant; you can find anything you need by typing in the right search phrase. But the monolithic "type-and-you'll-find-it" company has also been hiding features in the form of Easter eggs inside its pages for some time.

These Google Easter eggs are search queries that turn your browser upside down, sneak in fun pop culture references and even give nods to popular science fiction stories.

What Are Easter Eggs?

In digital media, the term "Easter egg" refers to fun, hidden references for users to uncover — not entirely unlike the pastel-colored eggs the Easter bunny hides every spring — ranging from phrases to images and everything in between.

Think of these Easter eggs as rewards from creators for anyone who takes the time to dig into a product long enough to see what's there. Alternatively, they're a pleasant surprise to a user who happens to stumble upon them.

They're gratifying to seek out because, typically, no one knows in advance that they're going to pop up.

Probably the most familiar example of an Easter egg appears periodically on the Google homepage. Often, these will be whimsical animations that appear (and are relevant to) a specific day of the year. This is a kind of Google Easter egg that most people have experienced.

Origins of the Digital Easter Egg

We can trace the origins of digital Easter eggs to 1976 and Atari video game designer Warren Robinett, who wasn't pleased when Warner Communications first took over.

When Robinett's new bosses laid down the law that game designers wouldn't receive credit for their contributions, he took it upon himself to code a hidden Easter egg into the game he was creating to immortalize his hard work. That way, his imprint would be there forever, no matter what his bosses thought about it.

Since then, digital Easter eggs have been a feature of many software products, and they've remained especially popular in video games.

A Romantic Beginning for Google Easter Eggs

Google has been embedding Easter eggs into its search results pages and software since at least 2000. The first of Google's Easter eggs was a fun Valentine's Day experiment. Google search co-founder Sergey Brin asked Ken Perlin, computer science professor at New York University, to add a special heart character he created for an app to be added to Google.

The website has now been archived, but it acted as one of the first Easter eggs for Google users to find. In a way it still is, as the Valentine's day Easter egg is only reachable via a specific line of mathematical code placed into the search bar.

It remains a testament to the cool little extras the search engine has been adding over the years, starting with relatively humble beginnings.

The Konami Code

From there, Google's developers continued to have fun with the idea of hiding these small surprises for users. One infamous addition is the video game-centric "Konami code," which originally offered unlimited lives in the title "Contra."

Entering the code (up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right) via Google's voice search will unlock the fun "Google cheat mode" so you have "unlimited searches" — which, of course, is a bit of a cheeky reward since Google provides unlimited searches to begin with.

13 Examples of Google Easter Eggs

Now that you're up to speed, you can check out the following list of Google Easter eggs for a few fun surprises. Each of them comes attached to a fun animation or inventive effect that you might not think a browser is capable of.

Google search for "do a barrel roll." This Easter egg will show you just how versatile the search engine is.
Google search for "askew." This Easter egg subtly embodies the search query.
Google search for "flip a coin." The search results will be topped with a fun feature.
Google search for "recursion." This fun Easter egg might not be evident at first, but if you know the definition of the word in the context of computer science, you'll get the joke.
Google search for "the answer to life, the universe and everything." For this Google Easter egg to make sense, you should have some familiarity with seminal sci-fi author Douglas Adams's work.
Google search for "Conway's game of life." Science nerds will love this Easter egg.
Google search for "anagram." This is another joke that you might miss at first glance.
Google search for "solar eclipse." A brief sensory experience awaits.
Google search for "Google logo history." This will take you on a trip down memory lane.
Google search for "Bletchley park." Bletchley Park is an estate in England that was used in World War II for code breaking.
Google search for "pi" and you'll get the Pi symbol on the Google calculator at the top of the results.
A Google search for "once in a blue moon" will give you a very precise mathematical answer. You may need to peek above the dictionary definition to catch the calculation.
A Google search for "Blink html" will yield fun results for those who are familiar with computer coding.

3 Defunct Google Easter Eggs

Some Google Easter eggs don't work anymore; it's in the nature of digital Easter eggs to be somewhat elusive, and while it's Google's policy to introduce new surprises on the search results page, they also can discontinue them at will, and often do. It's all part of the fun of the Easter egg hunt.

Zerg rush: This query pulled up a Google easter egg that turned the search page into a fun game.
"Wenn ist das Nunstück git und Slotermeyer? Ja! Beiherhund das Oder die Flipperwaldt gersput!": Typing the phrase into Google Translate would produce a "FATAL ERROR" warning. This is another reference that not everyone will get, but fans of Monty Python will likely chuckle.
Google birthday surprise spinner: The Easter egg for this search also appears to have been discontinued, but you can find archived versions of different Google doodles from years past.

Google continues to hide new Easter eggs throughout its entire portfolio of products, and if you look hard enough, you'll find them all across its footprint on the web: YouTube, Google Maps, Google Translate and just about everything else the company touches.

But now that you have an idea about what Easter eggs are and how they go beyond Google search results, you can start poking around and looking to find your own set of Google surprises. You never know what might appear or disappear — so it might be a good idea to start making a checklist of the ones you've discovered.