The Google Homepage And Global Warming

Aug 10, 2007 at 9:34am ET by Greg Sterling

A number of people, including those that run the sites Blackle and Darkoogle, have argued in the recent past that Google should turn its homepage (and results background) from white to black to save energy. (Both of the above sites use the Google custom search engine). Here’s some background on the controversy from US News. Google counters that black screens actually use more energy than white and they point to research that appears to confirm this. On a larger front, Google is part of the Climate Savers Computing initiative that seeks to make computer hardware and data centers more energy efficient.

So while green is certainly the new black, black may not be the new green after all.

Related Topics: Channel: Consumer | Google: General | Search & Society: General

About The Author: Greg Sterling is a Contributing Editor at Search Engine Land. He writes a personal blog Screenwerk, about SoLoMo issues and connecting the dots between online and offline. He also posts at Internet2Go, which is focused on the mobile Internet. Follow him @gsterling. See more articles by Greg Sterling

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http://www.webperc.com webperc

Blackle’s claims to save energy, while admirable, fall a little short when you look at the facts.

My approach to reduce display power consumption is quite simple. Find more efficient search techniques and spend less time using the monitor by using a more efficient Google search. How?

I have created several Google Custom Search Engines using Google Topic driven search technology and a method of linking multiple search engines to increase search engine efficiency.

Most of you whom are familiar with Google CSE capabilities already know what I am talking about.

Entering an initial search string in the search box and hitting the search button displays a list of topics below the search box. When you select a topic my search combines the previous search string with the search string I have placed inside the topic.

It works quite well and reduces the time you spend running searches. The topics are numerous and assist the user with effective search result groupings that many users would not think of.

I have three main custom search engines that I have created. The Plasma TV Custom Search makes extensive use of topics.

Plasma TV Custom Search- http://www.webperc.com
Music Custom Search- http://www.webperc.com/tab-hut.htm
Google Search- http://www.webperc.com/google-search.htm

Take a look and let me know what you think.

Ray Szasz
http://www.webperc.com