Billboards

Posted on April 19, 2007 by xkcd

There’s some strange text on billboards around New York. I passed these four this weekend:

THE ALGORITHM CONSTANTLY FINDS JESUS
THE ALGORITHM KILLED JEEVES
THE ALGORITHM IS BANNED IN CHINA
THE ALGORITHM IS FROM JERSEY

It’s clearly a viral marketing campaign and seems to be by Ask.com. I like puzzles like this, but at the moment it doesn’t seem to go anywhere — if you Google it, you just get blogs talking about the odd billboards. That’s not really very much fun.

It occurs to me that the sort of people who would be curious enough to go to Google and type them in are probably the sort of people who would like xkcd, so maybe we should create a twist in the puzzle. For those of you who have blogs or other sites, feel free to create links to xkcd.com with those billboard lines as the link text. I put the phrases at the bottom of xkcd.com so it won’t be filtered out as a Googlebomb.

240 thoughts on “Billboards”

mantolama on February 9, 2011 at 5:50 am said:

terested people have done is go to Google to try clpaert sosist nones
mantolama on February 9, 2011 at 5:52 am said:

terested people have done is go to shaped of your clapped
hosting on February 9, 2011 at 5:53 am said:

e have done is go to shape vedeas north poplices
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e have done is go to shape money troped fest
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e have done is go to shape beleop polp sirert
porno on February 9, 2011 at 6:01 am said:

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toxicFork on February 16, 2011 at 5:36 am said:

Is it me or are all the comments in this article completely gibberish?
toxicFork on February 16, 2011 at 5:37 am said:

Oh, wait – they’re advertisements.
Steve on February 16, 2011 at 2:18 pm said:

Listen to Best Thing From on Itunes.
marxist explosionism on February 16, 2011 at 3:39 pm said:

I figured out the connection to new jersey two of the men that invented the algorithm were from new jersey oh and there was a guy who pretty much played 6 degrees of separation with google so you put in a search and within I think ten references you can get to jesus he also did it with wikipedia but either way this is just a really clever ad for google and ask.com
Matt on February 18, 2011 at 12:35 pm said:

@Steve: I can’t think of anything that makes me want to listen to your podcast LESS than seeing a link to it shit out in commentspam. Maybe at least *try* to relate it to the article first…
Steve on February 21, 2011 at 4:28 am said:

You’re probably right Matt – I just felt it would be quite ironic to have a page that gains hits purely by people wondering wtf

THE ALGORITHM CONSTANTLY FINDS JESUS
THE ALGORITHM KILLED JEEVES
THE ALGORITHM IS BANNED IN CHINA
THE ALGORITHM IS FROM JERSEY

means link to another thing. I should of created some mystery around it perhaps. Thrown a few lines out then linked them on my site, I dunno. But from the looks of it a couple of people visited from here so thats something I guess?
Upcoming Video Game Releases on February 23, 2011 at 2:39 pm said:

Only 7 backlinks?? Cmon we can do better than that. I’ll get you some backlinks
All Purpose Tool on February 24, 2011 at 2:35 am said:

Just for fun I took all the first letters of each word in this statement.
WTJTJTCTJTJTT I noticed that there is a twice repeating pattern “TJTJT”
So I did a search on that and ended up at this site:
http://www.keyr.com/analysis/tjtjtj.html
where they are doing a survey to find out why people do searches on the string “tjtjtj”.
So I filled out the survey.
Just FYI.
ARCHION on February 28, 2011 at 1:14 am said:

THE ALGORITHM
Is a algorithm developed by ASK.com as the ultimate decision engine.
(sound familiar? The me-to! company ripped it off and launched BING)

the billboards are pretty self explanatory however here are the keys:
THE ALGORITHM CONSTANTLY FINDS JESUS
One of the top topics found on the internet
THE UNIBOMBER HATES THE ALGORITHM
He hated all things high tech
THE ALGORITHM KILLED JEEVES
askjeevs.com is now ASK.com (Jeeves retired)
THE ALGORITHM IS BANNED IN CHINA
What isn’t…
THE ALGORITHM IS FROM JERSEY
The lead developers are in Jersey
nike shox turbo shoes on March 9, 2011 at 9:40 pm said:

Admiring the time and effort you put into your website and in depth information you offer. It’s awesome to come across a blog every once in a while that isn’t the same out of date rehashed material. Great read! I’ve saved your site and I’m adding your RSS feeds to my Google account.
dormito on April 6, 2011 at 7:48 am said:

maybe it would be a good idea to put a link(in same font setup as the “the algerith” text) at the bottom of the page so people who frequent xkcd and wonder wtf that random text at the bottom is can find a quick answer
dmh on April 8, 2011 at 9:18 am said:

@dormito, Nah. As a long-time and confused-by-the-algorithm reader of xkcd, I enjoyed the “challenge” of searching around until I found this page. I think most people who read xkcd regularly would probably enjoy it, too, though perhaps that’s an unfair they-must-all-be-like-me generalization.
bird houses for sale on April 19, 2011 at 6:24 pm said:

There are some really good points you made in your post…very insightful
Bored in 4a study on April 21, 2011 at 12:16 pm said:

I think i’ve got it. The graffiti is seemingly resultant of paranoia, internal strife, and stock market dominance (hence why it is in NY). The graffiti could be by various investors and former workers referencing the search engine algorithm,how either it was not made by them, or just paranoia crap based on the algorithm’s sheer pervasiveness and power in the market. i think it is literal, not cryptic. but the people tagging the billboards are likely unibomber-esque techno conspiracy theorists. This article is what sparked the idea.

http://money.cnn.com/2011/03/08/technology/google_algorithm_change/index.htm

oh, and yo mommas fat.
Bored in 4a study on April 21, 2011 at 12:21 pm said:

look this up maybe

google algorithm change 2011
Bored in 4a study on April 21, 2011 at 12:34 pm said:

http://blog.ask.com/2007/05/the_algorithm_i.html

…crap
Bored in 4a study on April 21, 2011 at 12:38 pm said:

i’m gonna go de-sheepify myself now… =(
Nicholas J Archambault on July 9, 2011 at 11:21 pm said:

I have to say, this didn’t take to long to figure out. I didn’t have to think much, just do some Google searching. So then yes, it was a pretty good advertisement.
xian on July 22, 2011 at 2:44 am said:

R.e. Apr 21: I love the fact that many URLs and billboard ad campaigns have a shelf-lives on par with eggs and milk, but google search incantations live forever…
porno on July 25, 2011 at 8:30 am said:

look this up maybe

google algorithm change 2011
Prakhar Vaish on July 30, 2011 at 11:47 am said:

so, can any1 plz tell d name of ALGORITHM!!??
itz very urgent
نايس قايز on September 2, 2011 at 10:35 pm said:

>>> {…} good {…} Thanks for the good works >>>>>
Megan on October 22, 2011 at 10:17 am said:

Just curious – why has the font size of the algorithm changed? I remember it used to be so small I couldn’t read it…. had it been filtered as googlebomb b/c the font was too small, and increasing the size stops that from happening?
cambalkon on December 13, 2011 at 7:02 am said:

Very clear explanation. And I kept mind on the contrary
Jonathan on December 25, 2011 at 6:15 pm said:

Well, now if you search it, it just shows a bunch of blogs asking, “Did you see that on xkcd.com?
Jonathan on December 25, 2011 at 6:16 pm said:

Now, if you search for it, you just get a bunch of forum threads asking, Did you see that on xkcd.com?
Anonymous on January 5, 2012 at 11:41 am said:

You’re all wrong.

It refers to the Al Gore Rhythm.
Pedro Cardoso on January 7, 2012 at 8:12 am said:

Nice backstory here, but I’m curious as to why you haven’t removed this “experiment” from the XKCD homepage after all this time?
steph on January 24, 2012 at 10:04 pm said:

ok ok so its a tad past 2007 but anyway…

http://theinspirationroom.com/daily/2007/askcom-algorithm-billboards/ ahhhhhh….

and now it makes perfect sense. =D
Theak on February 3, 2012 at 2:00 am said:

hi!!!
pengobatan tradisional on March 13, 2012 at 11:00 am said:

hahahhaa… Al Gore Rhythm.. really funny..
دليل مواقع on March 21, 2012 at 3:56 pm said:

In my personal opinion is subject follow-up and congratulate you for the beautiful and hot topics at the same time
Only accept greetings

xkcd

The blag of the webcomic

Billboards

240 thoughts on “Billboards”

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