Google prepared — and briefly was showing — a special logo in honor of today’s near miss with Asteroid 2012 DA14. However, the company removed that out of respect, following the meteor explosion over Russia.

Below, you can see the logo — or “doodle” as Google calls them — that was intended to run today on Google. It shows an asteroid plunging down toward the second G in Google, which dodges out of the way:

The logo above should show the animation, but if it doesn’t, here’s one part of it:

Search Engine Land news editor Barry Schwartz was one of several who spotted it briefly. When it failed to appear broadly as we expected, we assumed Google might have pulled it because of yesterday’s news out of Russia.

That’s exactly the case. ABC News has a statement from Google saying:

“Out of respect for those injured in the extraordinary meteor shower in Russia earlier today, we have removed today’s doodle from the Google homepage,” a Google spokesperson told ABC News. “The doodle was created to mark Asteroid 2012 DA14 passing Earth.”

The logo does live on Google if you know exactly where to look, which would be here.

Related Topics: Channel: Consumer | Google: Logos

About The Author: Danny Sullivan is a Founding Editor of Search Engine Land. He’s a widely cited authority on search engines and search marketing issues who has covered the space since 1996. Danny also serves as Chief Content Officer for Third Door Media, which publishes Search Engine Land and produces the SMX: Search Marketing Expo conference series. He has a personal blog called Daggle (and keeps his disclosures page there). He can be found on Facebook, Google + and microblogs on Twitter as @dannysullivan. See more articles by Danny Sullivan

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