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Google kills photo homepage after 14 hours

By Barry Collins

Posted on 11 Jun 2010 at 09:19

Google has ditched a bold experiment with background photos on its homepage after only 14 hours.

The infamously Spartan design of the Google homepage was yesterday replaced with customisable images, ripping up the company's infamous no-frills approach.

However, it appears the overhaul proved deeply unpopular. "Google background" was the seventh most popular search term on Google US yesterday, with many people struggling to work out how to switch off the photos ("remove Google background" was one of the top related searches, according to Google's own stats).

A "remove background" link was placed in the bottom left corner of the screen, but it appears many users didn't notice it, most likely because the white text link is very difficult to see on light-coloured backgrounds.

The experiment was meant to run for 24 hours, but Google pulled the the plug after only 14, with company vice president Marissa Mayer declaring the experiment over on her Twitter feed, having earlier informed her followers how to remove the backgrounds.

Visitors to Google this morning are presented with the traditional white background, although users who have signed in with Google accounts will still have their chosen photos in place.

The brief flirtation with background images at least provided some amusement for Google rival Bing, which pioneered the idea when the Microsoft search engine was revamped last year. "We've lost a background image, if found please return to bing.com," Microsoft Europe tweeted yesterday.

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User comments

Removing google background

One major problem was that the "remove background" link did not work, at least not for everyone including me.

By PeteMelbourne on 11 Jun 2010

Remove Background

That feature was only to enable you to remove your own custom background that you might have uploaded, and revert back to Google's default minging background.

I used the terrible help page associated with the feature to express my disappointment.

By john_robnob on 11 Jun 2010

I think people became a bit silly over the issue. It's not ours to demand changes, after all.

That said, the simple white page is synonymous with Google. That simplicity, more than a fancy background is what makes Google so usable.

By bubbles16 on 11 Jun 2010

Silly Google

The simple design of Google is part of their brand now. They shouldn't try to immitate others.

That said, I love using Bing in order to get the fabulous photos with hotspots.

By Grunthos on 11 Jun 2010

Bing copy?

Seemed like they were trying to copy Bing's approach with a random image everyday as part of their background to the search...

By mjb3000 on 11 Jun 2010

When is a background not a background?

When its the desktop? I think there is a demand for a changing desktop. The default ones are very boring. This is a good one (and free)
http://johnsadventures.com/software/backgroundswit
cher/

By grumpycrabuk on 11 Jun 2010

bingle

Yes, the remove image option did not work for anyone outside of the US - you couldnt even change it to a plain white background because it make the test in the foreground almost impossible to read. If it had been offered as an opt-in facility, that would have been fine to let people whack bg images on their search page if thats what they really wanted to do. Personally I didnt like it one little bit. I've heard people perjoritavely using the word 'Bingle' to describe the google background image service. Thats actually one of the nicer words used to describe it on the support forums: http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Web+Search/t
hread?tid=28a0c4e0cb3adfec&hl=en

By mykeblack on 11 Jun 2010

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