1334: Second

Second

|< < Prev #1334 (February 24, 2014) Next > >|

Title text: Let me just scroll down and check behind that rock. Annnnd... nope, page copyright year starts with '19'. Oh God, is this a WEBRING?

|< < Prev Random explanation Next > >|

Explanation

Google Search (or Google) is the most popular search engine on the Internet. A search engine is an application that helps provide hyperlinks to webpages in response to a user's query. Google, like most search engines nowadays, use algorithms to sort the list of hyperlinks, usually by relevancy in terms of a user's query, before being paginated into a generated collection of webpages.

Since Google Search is widely regarded as the most accurate and useful search engine, thanks to its optimized algorithms, a user can easily find the information they are looking for on the first page of results, if their search terms were sufficiently detailed. Because of this, it is rare for a user to ever view the second page of Google results, as it would imply that the results a user is looking for are either obscure, non-existent, or were not indexed. This is especially true for users who would rather improve their search query, which can be done at the top of the first page, than view (or perhaps discover) the link to the second page of Google results at the bottom of the first page.

According to a study by Chitika from 2013, 91.5% of all Google results traffic come from the first page, while a measly 4.8% are from the second page. A joke that spread around, even before this comic's release, is that the second page of Google results is the "best place to hide a dead body".

Cueball taking a desperate peek at the second page of Google results is represented by a not-at-all subtle metaphor, in which Cueball is about to wander into a sun-baked desert. He is also told by a talking rock in the desert that he must abandon his search, as the rock claims that the desert will yield none of his answers.

However, according to the title text, he ignores the rock and searches further. He shortly finds a vaguely relevant webpage, but rejects it as "the copyright year starts with '19'". This refers to copyright notices that can be included in websites under copyright, which are usually found at the bottom of webpages. Website copyright notices often include a year. Because they tend to sit in footers, which are infrequently updated, and annual tasks such as updating a current year are easily forgotten about, that year often represents when the website was last significantly refreshed, so a year starting with '19' implies that the current content may well date to before the 2000s. Since Cueball rejected it, perhaps he is looking for a website to be read and used for research purposes, and a website active from the 90s or earlier would probably contain information too outdated to be of any use to him.

After the rejection, Cueball is horrified at the sight of a webring navigation bar. A webring is a web directory of links to multiple websites, usually with a common theme and curated by a 'ringmaster'. They connect from one website to the next, eventually leading back to the starting site. Webrings were popularized in the 1990s by the titular webring, "The Webring" (later WebRing). In general, web directories fell out of use with the rise of search engines, so seeing a webring could mean a site has not been updated since then.

Yahoo acquired WebRing in 1999 as part of its acquisition of GeoCities (a popular webhosting service at the time) and rebranded the service as Yahoo! WebRing in 2000, leaving ringmasters "angry", in part because their customizable homepages had been replaced by the design of Yahoo! WebRing. Taking off in the early 2020s, people have been creating new webrings, often in connection to the web hosting service Neocities, launched in 2013 and inspired by GeoCities. At one time, the importance of a webpage was judged partly on the number of pages linking to it; a webring has at least one page (the previous page in the ring) linking to it but often nothing else (if they were notable enough to be otherwise linked, they were less likely to be on a webring), meaning that reaching a webring meant that one had reached the one-incoming-link level of unimportance.

Transcript

[Cueball in a desert standing before a rock.]

Rock: Greetings, stranger.

Rock: Whatever quest drives you, abandon it.

Rock: You shall find no answers in these desolate wastes.

Cueball: I knew I wouldn't.

Cueball: I guess I... just had to see.

[Caption below the panel:]

I hate feeling desperate enough to visit the second page of Google results.

  Add comment 

Discussion

The explanation for comic 1334: Second was selected by the Explanation Improvement Project as This Week's Explanation for Improvement after being nominated in October 2026 by Black Hat's Hat. During that week, editors focused on expanding and polishing this explanation as part of an ongoing effort to keep older or under-developed explanations fresh and complete. (compare before and after)

Reference to how much Google knows about us and the 'Filter Bubble'? OTOH could just be a straight-forward observation of the search habits of most people - if I don't find what you're looking for on the first page , I try to refine my search terms rather than goto page 2 . 108.162.225.132 05:52, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

But you can remember a time when you did go to the second or third page with some frequency, back when the Gooooooooooogle at the bottom of each page was rendered in text and your mom thought it was just so cool that the red 'o' showed her which page she was on. jameslucas (" " / +) 14:32, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

What do you mean, “back when”? The Gooooooooooogle still behaves the way you described. --108.162.254.64 16:58, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

Not quite. If you look at it, it's actually showing bits of an image, which happens to contain text. (The sprite sheet is http://www.google.com/images/nav_logo170_hr.png ) 108.162.219.5 18:27, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

Interestingly, some research <citation missing> shows that Google's results are oriented more towards commercial results than other vendors, meaning that if you are looking for a non-commercial answer you might need to look at the second page (or switch search providers). Randymack (talk) 12:45, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

I really want to see that citation. --NeatNit (talk) 15:09, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

You could probably Google for it... :) 199.27.128.84 17:16, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

The dictionary definition of "desperation" looks a bit out of place. What's the point in it? Also, is there an explanation for the talking rock? A mention to the symbolic over dramatization of the incident? Dulcis (talk) 15:43, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

Are we sure it's a desert? I know it mentions "desolate wastes", but it looks an awful lot like a seashore to me, not a desert. —Scs (talk) 17:09, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

I can see that, but fairly certain it's a desert. His footprints linger to the right. If he were wading in water they'd not last. And the rock on the left has several smaller pebbles around it, which would be covered if the rock were in water. 199.27.128.84 17:21, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

I think the title text is referring to the results from searching for a number like "19". Instead of information about nineteen, you get lots of pages which tangentially refer to it, such as "President correcting discrimination against 19 Jewish, Hispanic and African American soldiers" or pages with a copyright year of 19xx. -108.162.219.7 17:10, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

The title text actually says "page copyright year starts with '19'." I don't know how that can be interpreted as anything other than a reference to a year. 199.27.128.84 17:21, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

I think the rock is a reference to World of Warcraft, where some quests lead you to a rock or pile of mud. 141.101.96.221 22:43, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

Unlikely, as none of them lead to a TALKING rock 141.101.70.133 (talk) 16:08, 25 February 2014 (UTC) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

So bereft are you of intelligent content, at this point in your search of the barren desert, that even the speech of the humble rock is rendered grandiose of style, relative to all the other explanatory dialogues you may yet find yourself taking part in... (i.e. at this point a rock is the best bet for something that'll actually talk to you. Even the tumbleweeds are absent and the sand is notoriously of no help whatsoever.) 141.101.99.41 13:38, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

How is this accurate? When searching for sources while editing over at Wikipedia, I find useful info on the second and third pages all the time. I even once found something on the eighth page of my search. Jake (talk) 00:04, 23 May 2014 (UTC)

Yes, but it's generally not done, if you will. Most people generally find what they need on the first page, or something close enough that they don't want to bother looking further, and don't need the second page. 173.245.56.189 00:14, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

What makes it true for me is that 99 times out of 100, after skimming page 1 I'll have an idea of e.g. another term to add or one to exclude so I can refine my query & drill down to the info faster --172.69.22.224 19:10, 24 December 2018 (UTC)

I find myself looking at pages 1-10 while looking for videos, because I tend to search for videos based by theme, rather than searching for a specific one, and some themes have a lot of relevant videos. Though if I do search for a specific video typing what it is about and who made it usually is enough to find it on a first page (or one of it's reuploads at least). Though this first page sometimes shows how much videos are reuploaded, as I tend to find first page filled with reuploads of one video when I am searching for a specific one. 108.162.219.63 20:22, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

Interestingly, if you look up “2nd page of google”, this comic will appear on the 2nd page. 172.70.114.59 (talk) 19:47, 24 November 2022 (UTC) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

I wish this were still the case. These days the first page of results is almost all sponsored content, ads, and content-free SEO trash, and most of the search results you actually want to see have been pushed down into page 2. 172.68.118.201 19:42, 18 July 2023 (UTC)

Further update -- now the results start with AI slop. Barmar (talk) 14:23, 27 October 2026 (UTC)

That is why – if I can – I use:

• Google Scholar ((at least mostly) free from content-free SEO/"GEO" trash)
• additional terms or term exclusion s. t. I don't have to skim through 99 pages
• "-ai" s. t. I need not skim through so many AI-related websites or generated explanations

All because Google now does not even make it possible to turn off generated explanations, and I would not be bereft if the stochastic parrots' bubble bursts – even if it causes a crisis like (or even worse than) 2008. 2001:4C4D:1AC6:E600:9918:DA0E:4AD3:CE1D 07:45, 28 October 2026 (UTC)

Check out https://udm14.org and https://tenbluelinks.org for a way to turn off the AI gobbledygook. Or maybe https://noai.duckduckgo.com - IMSoP (talk) 17:29, 29 October 2026 (UTC)

There are Firefox and Chrome extensions that make the AI overviews go poof. FaviFake (talk) 17:58, 31 October 2026 (UTC)
        Add comment