On Saturday, Google went dark in San Francisco. No, it didn’t lose a data center. It simply turned the home page black for the day to support Lights Out San Francisco. The change from white to black wasn’t to actually conserve energy, as Google has determined this doesn’t reduce energy consumption. Rather it was a symbolic “turning out the lights” to promote the effort of Lights Out San Francisco to get the city to turn out their lights for an hour. The organization has pictures of the event.

According to the Lights Out San Francisco blog, the organization started in April of this year following in the footsteps of Earth Hour in Sydney, Australia.

If you missed participating on Saturday, you can turn off your lights for their next event on March 29th.

More information and screenshots are available at Googlified and Search Engine Journal.

Related Topics: Google: General | Google: Marketing

About The Author: Vanessa Fox is a Contributing Editor at Search Engine Land. She shares her perspectives on how search impacts marketing, user experience, and web development at ninebyblue.com. Her book, Marketing in the Age of Google, provides a blueprint for incorporating search strategy into organizations of all levels. Follow her on Twitter at @vanessafox. See more articles by Vanessa Fox