Most Popular (and Hidden!) Google Easter Eggs

Google is the go-to search engine for so much, including trending topics. People often use it for things like details of a new movie release, or how to play popular games like Wordle. Sometimes, Google itself likes to get in on the excitement and give users a little surprise when they search for certain trending subjects. In a way, it’s the search engine’s answer to newsjacking, something we and many other PR pros do in the digital PR industry.

The nearly universally used search engine calls them Google Easter Eggs. The Easter Eggs can be as simple as a witty response to your query, or intricate enough to take over your entire search screen. For example, when Avengers Endgame was released, Google recreated the supervillain Thanos’ infamous “snap.” After clicking his glove, half the results disappeared from the page! 

So, which Google Easter Eggs are America’s favorites? We analyzed more than 1,000 Google search trends to figure out the 50 most popular in the nation, and the top 10 Easter Eggs you probably haven’t heard of before.

Top 25 Most Popular Google Easter Eggs

Some of the top Google Easter Eggs in the nation are games! Americans are fascinated with solving Wordle and also checking out Google’s Wordle Easter Egg. When people search for “Wordle,” Google’s logo turns into the game! The logo acts like someone solving the puzzle and ends, of course, with “GOOGLE” in the boxes. Three other games are in the top 15: Solitaire (3rd), flip a coin (8th), and Minesweeper (14th). 

Another popular type of Easter Egg has to do with movies and TV shows. While the Thanos snap didn’t make the top 50 most current popular Easter Eggs, The Last of Us certainly did. The Easter Egg ranked 9th. When you search the zombie-inspired TV series, a mushroom button appears. If you dare to press it, cordyceps, the fungus that caused the zombie outbreak, takes over the screen! 

America also loves the Easter egg for the popular K-pop boy band, BTS, (13th). It lets users pop purple balloons while hearing messages from band members. Other favorites include watching Sonic the Hedgehog roll by (15th), and helping Mario get a coin for 200 points (18th)!

America’s Favorite Google Easter Eggs

Americans are also fascinated by all sorts of furry pets, and Google can tell. Nine of the most popular Google Easter Eggs have to do with dogs and cats. When you search cat, dog, puppy, or kitten the search engine also includes a paw button. If you press it, don’t be surprised to see a virtual cat or dog get their paws all up in your business! 

One fun Easter Egg changes the look of the entire screen. If you search “askew”, which is something that isn’t level, the screen tilts just like the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Separately, if you search “recursion” Google asks “Did you mean: recursion?” This is exactly what you typed and an example of recursion itself! 

Some of the Easter Eggs are pretty witty. For example, when searching for the late Alex Trebek, Google will ask you “Did you mean: Who is Alex Trebek?” If you’re a Jeopardy fan, Google will make sure to give you the answer in the proper Jeopardy format. 

Top 10 Secret Google Easter Eggs

While Google’s Easter Eggs are meant to be a surprise, some are a little too tough to uncover! Good news: we did the work of finding them for you! These are some of the Easter Eggs with the least monthly searches. 

A couple are based on real historic events. Chicxulub is a crater in Mexico that was made by the infamous asteroid that is believed to have killed most of the dinosaurs in the world. When you search for it, an asteroid fires across the screen! Meanwhile, Bletchley Park was an estate used for code-breaking during World War II. If you find yourself Googling it, its name first appears in code! 

Meanwhile, when you look up “dinner for one” a tiger appears. Click that, and you’ll see a brief scene from a 1960’s comedy showing the butler tripping over a tiger rug. Prepare to take a spin if you search “z or r twice”. 

As for the top three hidden Easter Eggs, some are a little cheeky! If you search “loneliest number” of the “number of horns on a unicorn”, Google has the answer for you. It shows the number 1 on a calculator. 

The top Google Easter Egg is the most secret probably because it’s hard to write out. If you type “(sqrt(cos(x))*cos(500*x)+sqrt(abs(x))-0.4)*(3-x*x)^0.1” the math problems is solved to show a heart! Love that. 

A quick Google search can be about as mundane as it might get, but Easter Eggs add amusement to what would otherwise be a few moments barely worth remembering. The internet is a funny place, and Google is simply helping us remember that. 

Methodology

To determine the top 50 Google Easter Eggs & top 10 hidden Easter Eggs, we analyzed Google search volume of 1,182 terms related to Google Easter Eggs such as “Thanos snap Easter Egg,” “Google gravity Easter Egg,” and “Wizard of Oz Easter Egg” over the period of March 2022 to February 2023.

The top 50 Google Easter Eggs were determined by examining which ones had the most searches. Meanwhile, the top 10 hidden Easter Eggs were the ones with the least searches. 

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