Hey—we've moved. Visit
The Keyword
for all the latest news and stories from Google
Official Blog
Insights from Googlers into our products, technology, and the Google culture
Pirates vs. Ninjas: Who would win?
5. prosince 2008
The
rivalry
has become a social phenomenon, from YouTube videos
condemning pirates' accents
to movies predicting the
outcome
of a final showdown, and
games
that let you decide who's the mightiest. The clash comes to a head twice a year:
Talk Like a Pirate Day
on September 19th, and the
Day of the Ninja
on December 5th.
In September, we announced support for
searching in pirate
in time for the rum-filled celebrations. But when we sat down to brainstorm how one might search in ninja, we had a challenge. As far as we know, ninjas communicate telepathically -- and sadly, our search algorithm isn't quite there yet.
In fact, due to the stealth behavior inherent to ninja life, we didn't even know how to contact one for a consultation. We started looking for evidence of ninja activity on the web, and what we found confirmed our own inability to locate ninjas. Over the last four years, searches for ninjas have steadily increased:
But does an increase in curiosity indicate an increase in the ninja population? To answer this, we took a peek into our aggregated search terms over 2008. What we found seems to support the notion of a pervasive ninja community. But even that's open to interpretation:
Top Queries of 2008 related to "Ninjas Are..."
ninjas are there
ninjas are everywhere
ninjas are better
ninjas are awesome
ninjas are sexy
Are we witnessing a quiet but steady ninja takeover? Should pirates be taking to the seas? Only time will tell. Or take matters into your own hands by comparing queries and graphs yourself using our
Insights for Search
tool.
Posted by Kasia Chmielinski, Google Blog Team
Štítky
Africa
19
Android
58
April 1
4
Asia
39
Europe
46
Latin America
18
accessibility
41
acquisition
26
ads
131
apps
419
books + book search
48
commerce
12
computing history
7
crisis response
33
culture
12
developers
120
diversity
35
doodles
68
education and research
144
entrepreneurs at Google
14
faster web
16
free expression
61
google.org
73
googleplus
50
googlers and culture
202
green
102
maps and earth
194
mobile
124
online safety
19
open source
19
photos
39
policy and issues
139
politics
71
privacy
66
recruiting and hiring
32
scholarships
31
search
505
search quality
24
search trends
118
security
36
small business
31
user experience and usability
41
youtube and video
140
Archive
2016
lis
říj
zář
srp
čvc
čvn
kvě
dub
bře
úno
led
2015
pro
lis
říj
zář
srp
čvc
čvn
kvě
dub
bře
úno
led
2014
pro
lis
říj
zář
srp
čvc
čvn
kvě
dub
bře
úno
led
2013
pro
lis
říj
zář
srp
čvc
čvn
kvě
dub
bře
úno
led
2012
pro
lis
říj
zář
srp
čvc
čvn
kvě
dub
bře
úno
led
2011
pro
lis
říj
zář
srp
čvc
čvn
kvě
dub
bře
úno
led
2010
pro
lis
říj
zář
srp
čvc
čvn
kvě
dub
bře
úno
led
2009
pro
lis
říj
zář
srp
čvc
čvn
kvě
dub
bře
úno
led
2008
pro
lis
říj
zář
srp
čvc
čvn
kvě
dub
bře
úno
led
2007
pro
lis
říj
zář
srp
čvc
čvn
kvě
dub
bře
úno
led
2006
pro
lis
říj
zář
srp
čvc
čvn
kvě
dub
bře
úno
led
2005
pro
lis
říj
zář
srp
čvc
čvn
kvě
dub
bře
úno
led
2004
pro
lis
říj
zář
srp
čvc
čvn
kvě
dub
Feed
Google
on
Follow @google
Follow
Give us feedback in our
Product Forums
.
Follow
