Google Mirror FAQ

Welcome to the Google Mirror FAQ.
Have a question about the Google Mirror? Email googlemirror.

1. General Questions

1.1. Why is this backwards?
1.2. Why have you done this?
1.3. Well, yes - but what's the point? Other than humor.
1.4. Was it your idea?
1.5. Do you make any money from elgooG?
1.6. Is Google involved?
1.7. Are the Google chaps yelling?
1.8. I can't get the search to work. How do you search?
1.9. Do you allow web designers to place a link to the Google Mirror on websites? Is there a fee or donation? If it's okay, where can I download a copy of the link button?
1.10. Where has the Google Mirror been featured?
1.11. How many people have visited the Google Mirror?
1.12. Did people in China really use the Google Mirror after China blocked Google?
1.13. I heard that China also blocked other websites that used Google. Why didn't China block elgooG too?
1.14. Does the Google Mirror support other languages?
1.15. What does "Google" mean?
1.16. Are you on crack or something? =)
1.17. Quite some time back, there was a site at which you could pass in a URL, and show that site's pages mirrored. Any chance you could revive that idea?

2. Implementation Questions

2.1. So...how's it done?
2.2. What software are you using to run your Google mirror - or is it custom code?
2.3. How can I get the code?
2.4. How do you get the search results from Google?
2.5. Wouldn't it be cool to make the textbox type right-to-left?
2.6. How did you get the textbox to work backwards?
2.7. Your textbox is buggy. Punctuation and spaces come out at the left of the typed in text, then reverse again when you type in the next alpha-numeric character.
2.8. Shouldn't the scroll bar be on the left side of the screen?
2.9. How did you display the sroll bars on the left hand side of the page?
2.10. It's not really a mirror. Shouldn't you use a mirror font rather than just writing the letters in the opposite order?
2.11. Why is "I'm feeling Lucky" and not "Google search" the default (active) button?
2.12. Why doesn't it work with Chinese characters?
2.13. Can you mirror other websites?

General Questions

1.1. Why is this backwards?

It's a Google mirror. A common practice for busy websites is to create a mirror site, which is an exact replica of the original site but on a different server. This way if one server is really busy, you can go to the other server. elgooG is a play on this idea, except instead of an exact replica of the site, it's a mirror image of the site.

1.2. Why have you done this?

For fun. I thought it was a pretty funny idea and an interesting programming challenge, so I did it.

1.3. Well, yes - but what's the point? Other than humor.

It helps promotes reading backwards, which could be useful in such situations as reading the front of an ambulance or playing scrabble.

1.4. Was it your idea?

Yes, I came up with the idea when I was driving to New York City with Ben.

1.5. Do you make any money from elgooG?

No, the Google Mirror is free. We are accepting donations, which go to our bandwidth costs (around $50/month). Or you can help us out by buying a membership at All Too Flat for only $10.

1.6. Is Google involved?

No, the Google Mirror is not affiliated with Google in any way. (Although I tried to get a job there last year).

1.7. Are the Google chaps yelling?

Nope. As far as I can tell, they don't mind the mirror. We asked them if we could make elgooG merchandise to help pay for bandwidth, but they said no. Anyway, if you work for Google we'd love to get an email from you.

1.8. I can't get the search to work. How do you search?

You have to enter your search queries backwards. For example, to search for "all too flat" you have to enter "talf oot lla".

1.9. Do you allow web designers to place a link to the Google Mirror on websites? Is there a fee or donation? If it's okay, where can I download a copy of the link button?

Yes, feel free to put links to the Google Mirror on your websites. There is no fee but donations are greatly appreciated (all proceeds go to our bandwidth costs). Here are some handy images to use as a link buttons:

1.10. Where has the Google Mirror been featured?

1.11. How many people have visited the Google Mirror?

We currently do not have a running total of page visits. Although on Sept 8th 2002 when we were Slashdotted we had 2 million hits over 2 days.

1.12. Did people in China really use the Google Mirror after China blocked Google?

Yes. We received numerous emails from web surfers in China thanking us for this service.

1.13. I heard that China also blocked other websites that used Google. Why didn't China block elgooG too?

We believe that elgooG survived the Great Firewall of China because the firewall operators thought that elgooG was a joke and not a fully functional version of Google.

1.14. Does the Google Mirror support other languages?

Elgoog supports other languages except for Chinese, Korean, and Japanese. Click here to select your language, or follow the "Language Tools" link on the elgooG home page.

1.15. What does "Google" mean?

"The site's name is word-play inspired by googol, the term that describes the very large number of 10 to the 100th power (which works out to 1 followed by 100 zeroes), which apparently suggested the large number of Web pages that the search engine has indexed. Although as yet somewhat short of a googol, Google's capabilities are nevertheless impressive. According to an earlier estimate (when they could search 2 billion Web pages), Google says that the pages searched would create a 110-mile high pile of paper if they were printed out." (definition from whatis.com)

1.16 Are you on crack or something? =)

No, just caffeine.

1.17. Quite some time back, there was a site at which you could pass in a URL, and show that site's pages mirrored. Any chance you could revive that idea?

I have no current plans to expand the mirroring to other sites.

Implementation Questions

2.1. So...how's it done?

The Google Mirror is implemented using a CGI script on our server. Your web browser requests a Google URL from our server. Our server then opens an HTML connection to the Google server and gets your desired web page. Our server analyzes the contents of the page, reverses it, and sends the mirrored page back to your web browser. In some sense, our server is acting as a proxy (albeit a very strange proxy) between your web browser and the Google server. Any images in the requested web page are also downloaded to our server and mirrored. Currently only JPEG and GIF images are supported. A caching system is used for common images and web pages.

2.2. What software are you using to run your Google mirror - or is it custom code?

The Google Mirror is a 4000-line custom CGI script written in PERL.

2.3. How can I get the code?

Sorry, the mirroring code is not available to the public.

2.4. How do you get the search results from Google?

The mirroring script uses a PERL library called LWP to open a URL connection to Google and read the data of the resulting web page.

2.5. Wouldn't it be cool to make the textbox type right-to-left?

Yes, in fact a right-to-left textbox can be used if you view the page using Internet Explorer (and later versions of Netscape).

2.6. How did you get the textbox to work backwards?

Using the "dir=rtl" option in the HTML "input" form tag. This only works IE 5+.

2.7. Your textbox is buggy. Punctuation and spaces come out at the left of the typed in text, then reverse again when you type in the next alpha-numeric character.

This is a bug with the right-to-left textboxes in IE.

2.8. Shouldn't the scroll bar be on the left side of the screen?

Yes, the left-side scrollbar is available if you are using IE 5+ or Netscape 6+.

2.9. How did you display the sroll bars on the left hand side of the page?

This is done using the "dir=rtl" option in the BODY HTML tag. This option will flip the scroll bar, along with the tables and certain text types. To display the scroll bar on the left side while keeping normal formatting in the rest of the page I used: 
<BODY dir=rtl>
<DIV dir=ltr>
...
</DIV>
</BODY>
Here's an example.

2.10. It's not really a mirror. Shouldn't you use a mirror font rather than just writing the letters in the opposite order?

Yes, ideally the page should be displayed with a mirror-image font. However, I do not know of such a font in existence. If you have a copy of this kind of font, or are willing to create a mirror-font, please email us at googlemirror.

2.11. Why is "I'm feeling Lucky" and not "Google search" the default (active) button?

In some browsers "Google Search" is the default button, while in others "I'm feeling lucky" is the default button. It seems pretty random. The solution is to use the mouse to click "Google search" rather than pressing the enter-key.

2.12. Why doesn't it work with Chinese characters?

Because each Chinese character is encoded with two bytes. The mirroring script swaps every byte of text, so the Chinese characters become unreadable after they are reversed. Korean and Japanese characters have the same problem.

2.13. Can you mirror other websites?

In theory, yes. However, there are currently no plans to use the mirroring code on other websites.

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Last Updated 02-18-2003