The United States of Autocomplete: How Google Sees America

Robert Galbraith / Reuters
Robert Galbraith / Reuters

If you were to type into Google the names of the 50U.S. states and allow the autocomplete search algorithm to generate your answers how would the map of America look?

For example, if you wanted to trek the Appalachian trail with a map of Google autocomplete’s responses, then starting in Georgia Tech you would have to navigate through North Carolina Football, Tennessee Titans, Virginia Tech and so on until you reach New Hampshire Real Estate and finally, Maine Vacations.

(See the best Google Doodles.)

Very Small Array has put together a map of the U.S. according to Google’s search algorithm as of 5.45pm-6.10pm on Dec. 3 2010. As autocomplete generates its results based on popular searches and hits by nation as well as local area searches, you might expect some of the more common results such as Kentucky Fried Chicken or New York Times but some, like Missouri Compromise or Utah Jazz, are verging on obscure.

(See Google in TIME’s Top 10 Technology Bans.)

NewsFeed doubts that Congress will vote to switch to Google’s map of the USAutocomplete as the official map of America any time soon. See the map at Mashable.

Related Topics: america, google, Google Autocomplete, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Map, New York Times, Newsfeed, us, Internet, Nation, Technology, Viral
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