# Google image search weirdness "You are here: Google Random Image"

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/google-image-search-weirdness-you-are-here-google-random-image/402734>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [May 4, 2007, 1:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/google-image-search-weirdness-you-are-here-google-random-image/402734 "2007-05-04T13:24:11Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 10\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\
**Post date:** [May 4, 2007, 1:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/google-image-search-weirdness-you-are-here-google-random-image/402734/1 "2007-05-04T13:24:11Z")

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I went for a walk on the beach out the back of my workplace this lunchtime and again, picked up a few fossils, one of them was a sponge which initial searches narrowed down to Ventriculites. When I do a Google image search on Ventriculites, I get a page of relevant results, then a dozen pages of images that are entirely irrelevant. They’re all titled beginning “You are here: Google Random Image …”

I’ve never seen this before - what’s going on?

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**Author:** ![vetbridge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b5e925/32.png) [@vetbridge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vetbridge)\
**Post date:** [May 4, 2007, 1:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/google-image-search-weirdness-you-are-here-google-random-image/402734/2 "2007-05-04T13:52:23Z")

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heh. I repeated your search and I am getting the same results. Never seen/heard of this before today!

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**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\
**Post date:** [May 4, 2007, 1:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/google-image-search-weirdness-you-are-here-google-random-image/402734/3 "2007-05-04T13:55:39Z")

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It looks like all the hits are for some site called [ghettodriveby.com](http://ghettodriveby.com) - they must have done some kind of google-bomb thing to make their results seem relevant.

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**Author:** ![Alwrong](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/94ad74/32.png) [@Alwrong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alwrong)\
**Post date:** [May 4, 2007, 2:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/google-image-search-weirdness-you-are-here-google-random-image/402734/4 "2007-05-04T14:05:47Z")

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> [@](#):
>
> The random image search is a pet project of Greg Froh, a Victoria, BC Web developer and problem-solver. This Web site features the juxtaposition of a word and a randomly selected image apparently corresponding with this word.
> 
> Let the hilarity ensue.

[http://www.ghettodriveby.com/about/](http://www.ghettodriveby.com/about/)

From McAfee SiteAdvisor:

> [@](#):
>
> We tested this site and didn’t find any significant problems

> **[McAfee SiteAdvisor Software – Website Safety Ratings and Secure Search](http://www.siteadvisor.com/sitereport.html?url=ghettodriveby.com%2F)**

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**Author:** ![vetbridge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b5e925/32.png) [@vetbridge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vetbridge)\
**Post date:** [May 4, 2007, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/google-image-search-weirdness-you-are-here-google-random-image/402734/5 "2007-05-04T14:34:50Z")

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Someone has asked Google about this:  
[http://groups.google.com/group/Google-Helpers/browse\_thread/thread/dce888dcb8c64636/8ac3433c3cdde5d1#8ac3433c3cdde5d1](http://groups.google.com/group/Google-Helpers/browse_thread/thread/dce888dcb8c64636/8ac3433c3cdde5d1#8ac3433c3cdde5d1)

Interesting.

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**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\
**Post date:** [May 4, 2007, 2:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/google-image-search-weirdness-you-are-here-google-random-image/402734/6 "2007-05-04T14:51:29Z")

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Page source (with page breaks that I added) for the first “You are here” image (the guy who looks like creature from the lagoon):

> [@](#):
>
> \<html\>\<head\>\<meta http-equiv=“content-type” content=“text/html;  
> charset=UTF-8”\>\<title\> Google Image Result for [http://www.darkhorizons.com/](http://www.darkhorizons.com/)  
> news04/vermin.jpg\</title\>\<script\>function checkTopFrame() {if (frames && frames  
> [0] && frames[0].document) {try {frames[0].document.domain;} catch(e) {location  
> = “/error”;}self.setTimeout(‘checkTopFrame()’, 3000);}}self.setTimeout  
> (‘checkTopFrame()’, 3000);\</script\>\</head\>\<frameset rows=“137,\*”\>\<frame  
> src=“/imgres?imgurl=[http://www.darkhorizons.com/news04/](http://www.darkhorizons.com/news04/)  
> vermin.jpg&imgrefurl=[http://www.ghettodriveby.com/vermin/](http://www.ghettodriveby.com/vermin/)  
> &h=499&w=402&sz=56&tbnid=0WcHobgPfpITWM:&tbnh=130&tbnw=105&hl=en&  
> prev=/images%3Fq%3D **Ventriculites** %26gbv%3D2%  
> 26svnum%3D10%26hl%3Den%26c2coff%3D1%26safe%3Doff%26sa%  
> 3DG&frame=small” scrolling=no marginwidth=0 marginheight=0 onload=“var d =  
> frames[0].document;var l = d.links[0];if (d.getElementById &&d.getElementById  
> (‘logo’)) {l = d.getElementById(‘logo’);}l.target=‘\_top’;”\>\<frame src=“http://  
> [www.ghettodriveby.com/vermin/](http://www.ghettodriveby.com/vermin/)”\>\<noframes\>Your browser does not support  
> frames. Google uses frames to display image results. You can view the \<a  
> href=[http://www.ghettodriveby.com/vermin/&gt;referring](http://www.ghettodriveby.com/vermin/&gt;referring) page\</a\> for this image.\</  
> noframes\>\</frameset\>\</html\>

Google’s just doing what you asked it to (I didn’t check the others but I suspect the word is in their page sources as well). As to why the heck the page source has “ventriculites” within it in the first place? ::shrug::

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\
**Post date:** [May 4, 2007, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/google-image-search-weirdness-you-are-here-google-random-image/402734/7 "2007-05-04T15:07:30Z")

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Thanks for that, it looks like a project to randomly link images with irrelevant search terms - looks like I’ll just have to start adding -site:ghettodriveby.com to my Google Image searches.

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**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\
**Post date:** [May 4, 2007, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/google-image-search-weirdness-you-are-here-google-random-image/402734/8 "2007-05-04T15:30:22Z")

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[QUOTE=Mangetout]  
Thanks for that, it looks like a project to randomly link images with irrelevant search terms - looks like I’ll just have to start adding -site:ghettodriveby.com to my Google Image searches.  
[/QUOTE]

Or add it to your Hosts file and alias it to localhost 🙂

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**Author:** ![gazpacho](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/6f9a4e/32.png) [@gazpacho](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gazpacho)\
**Post date:** [May 4, 2007, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/google-image-search-weirdness-you-are-here-google-random-image/402734/9 "2007-05-04T15:36:10Z")

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[QUOTE=AHunter3]  
Or add it to your Hosts file and alias it to localhost 🙂  
[/QUOTE]

That wont really help. google will still list the results. You just wont be able to view the pages linked from google.

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**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\
**Post date:** [May 4, 2007, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/google-image-search-weirdness-you-are-here-google-random-image/402734/10 "2007-05-04T19:55:52Z")

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[QUOTE=gazpacho]  
That wont really help. google will still list the results. You just wont be able to view the pages linked from google.  
[/QUOTE]

:smack: D’oh!