Google Removes Color Background on Home Page

It was a cool idea while it lasted.

If Google's famously sparse home page is too plain for you, the company wanted to give you some more options as a bold color photo of sand dunes replaced the white background to Google's search box Thursday. Google allowed users to replace the desert scene with images of their own or others available from Google. (Users were also given the option of sticking with the classic format.

In a blog post last week, Google Inc. said the move is aimed at making the "search experience more relevant, useful and fun through personalization." post today, Google vice president Marissa Mayer, said the company had collaborated with a collaborated with "several well-known artists, sculptors and photographers" to create the various background images.

However, the page, which was scheduled to automatically load with a color backdrop for 24 hours, had already reverted to its traditional white background by mid-day. Google originally intended to run the code as a proof of concept to demonstrate the new personalization functionality to users.

But it apparently didn't sit well with some users, who balked at having the color backdrop load automatically. By this afternoon, "Remove Google background" was the fifth ranked search phrase on Google Trends.

Danny Sullivan of SearchEngineLand.com suggests that the about-face had to with the fact that Google intended for there to be an explanation about the move, which failed to appear on the page.

"Google did explain through an official blog post that for today, it was showing a photo background on its normally clean, white home page. However relatively few Google users actually read its blog, so wouldn't know what was going on," he noted. "In addition, many people appear not to have liked it, ironically turning to Google desperately seeking a way to turn it off."

Watching its rival's discomfort from the other side of the pond, Microsoft Europe's PR team had some tongue-in-cheek fun at Google's expense. In a Twitter post, Microsoft asked "We've lost a background image, if found please return to bing.com ;)" Since its launch, Microsoft's Bing search service has always featured the ability to add background images.

Update: Google's official response:

(Mayer later updated her blog with the following note:)

Last week, we launched the ability to set an image of users' choosing as the background for the Google homepage. Today, we ran a special "doodle" that showcased this functionality by featuring a series of images as the background for our homepage. We had planned to run an explanation of the showcase alongside it-in the form of a link on our homepage. Due to a bug, the explanatory link did not appear for most users. As a result, many people thought we had permanently changed our homepage, so we decided to stop today's series early. We appreciate your feedback and patience as we experiment and iterate.