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`Googlewhacking' a new activity for the searchers

A new phenomenon is emerging on the Internet and like all geekish fads it involves terms seldom, if ever, heard elsewhere, such as "cuneiform meatspace" and "carburettor logotype."

The game is called "Google-whacking" and is the invention of some search-obsessed fans of Google.com, the search engine that has an index of over three billion Web pages.

The object of Googlewhacking is simple enough. A participant types two words into the Google search line with the hopes of pulling off a single search result.

If you see "Results 1-1 of 1" appear under a Google search -- congratulations! You're a winner (and you clearly don't have enough work to do).

Googlewhacking is more difficult than it looks. Google's massive database updates constantly, thus making the solitary search result more and more elusive.

And, of course, if your Googlewhack is subsequently recorded anywhere online it is forever nullified as a Googlewhack since future searches would pull up multiple results, one of the maddening challenges of the pastime.

Take "cuneiform meatspace," a Googlewhack ostensibly coined last month by an Internet user. A search on Monday, triggered three search results for "cuneiform meatspace," thus ending its brief life as a successful whack, or "uniwhack."

Various Web sites, including Unblinking.com, explain Googlewhacking in detail, replete with rules for the uninitiated.
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