As we’ve written in the past, 404 pages are an opportunity for startups and companies to have a little bit of geeky fun. Twitter has the Fail Whale, Google had its own version of the Fail Whale for Google Books Digg chose to go with the Fail Ox, and Blippy took inspiration from Double Rainbows. Google appears to be flirting with a new 404 page nowadays, featuring a very sad robot.
The 404 page, which you can find here (http://www.google.com/blah), includes a robot with the message “404. That’s an error. The requested URL /blah was not found on this server. That’s all we know.”
The robot, which looks so forlorn because it seems to have lost its legs and an arm, is a kind of a boring choice for the search giant, but I guess the company doesn’t really have a mascot and how do you make search funny? But the new page is definitely an improvement on Google’s previous simple 404 page.
Google provides search and advertising services, which together aim to organize and monetize the world’s information. In addition to its dominant search engine, it offers a plethora of online tools and platforms including: Gmail, Maps, YouTube, and Google+, the company’s extension into the social space. Most of its Web-based products are free, funded by Google’s highly integrated online advertising platforms AdWords and AdSense. Google promotes the idea that advertising should be highly targeted and relevant to users thus providing...
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