Google Style Guide: Does Google have a Style Guide?

A style guide offers tips, suggestions, guidelines and examples for aspiring writers. Internet search engines often foray well beyond their charter; Yahoo.com provides a style guide for web publishers. Mighty Google does not. Google does have:

• Email service called gMail,
  
• A File storage service called Google Docs,
  
• A custom programming language Known as 'R',
  
• A killer April Fool's Day Joke,
• A translation service called Google Translate,
  
• and additional invaluable services that we don't even know about.

Therefore the good folks at Google can be forgiven for overlooking a style guide.

We at the Institute for the Painfully Obvious clearly grasp the concept that Google represents Internet supremacy. They reside at the top of the digital heap. It falls to us to ponder that what Google Style Guide might contain. Until the Googleites release their own version, we humbly proffer possibilities.

When writing about the use of an Internet search engine, "search", should be replaced with "google". For example:

"Joe went online and googled for pizza places within 5 blocks of police stations."

This strategy extends the Google brand by leveraging the application of the Google trade name into parallel linguistic frameworks. It also makes you sound cool.

Corollary: Use the word "google" as other parts of speech

"Joe searched near and google for a bottle of Tums.

The preceding example illustrates that the word "google" can be substituted for an accusative direct object. Ignore any grammatical errors generated by Microsoft Word; they're just jealous.

Given that the Google Search engine indexes every page on the Internet, finding a relevant link for every published page should be trivial. Whether writing about cooking grilled cheese sandwiches or writing about grilled cheese sandwich fun facts, every possible internet topic can be google-ified with very little effort.

Google promises to increase your page rank by 2^-32 for every Google link included on a published web page. Really. It's in an email.

When configuring a web server, the entire Internet benefits from clueless administrators who mistakenly publish entire subdirectories that should obviously be private. Google searches return much more interesting results when social security numbers, income tax returns, and credit card statements are available to be indexed by the massive Google computers. Remember that Google caches stuff; once it's been indexed it's too late.

Any Internet writer worth her electrons will keep Twitter accounts up-to-date so would-be thieves can stop by at their leisure. Always Tweet your precise latitude and longitude so robbers may calculate their lead time. Tell your Facebook page what a great time you're having in the Lesser Antilles so web-savvy dirtbags can rob you blind back in Poughkeepsie .

Google computers never tire of rehashed SEO articles. Talented writers can rework the same worn out combinations of keyword advice, Page Rank calculations, and photos of really rich people standing beside rented BMWs in the valet parking area. Add a reference to an in-ground pool and your site will rocket to Page Rank 2 within 5 years, guaranteed.

Nothing makes the Google databases happier than gabillions of web pages parroting Top 40 lyrics. These sites require virtually no brain cells to create, and Google appreciates that. The world needs more versions of Bad Moon Rising.

Try this: Google"Bad Moon Rising" Lyrics. Note that 148,000 results are returned. Unfortunately Google only lets you see the first 1000, but rest assured that site number 139,999 will someday rocket into the top 10, given enough backlinks and sidelinks and long tail keywords and monkeys flying.