Google Makes Some Changes to the I’m Feeling Lucky Button

The I’m Feeling Lucky button on the Google homepage, which has been sitting there since day one, takes you directly to the first search result completely bypassing Google’s search results pages. It’s a convenient option for consumers though it does cost Google a lot of money since the company miss an opportunity to serve you ads.

Google won’t mind you spending a little more time on their own properties and thus, after nearly 15 years, they have made one little change to the “I’m Feeling Lucky” button.

Google wants you to spend more time on their own properties

If you hover your mouse over the Feeling Lucky button for a second or two, it now shows a rotating list of Google’s other products like Hot Trends, The Arts Project, Image Search, Google Doodles, Google Earth and Local Search (see snippet below).

The interesting part is that these suggestions show up even if you have entered a search query in the Google search box. Thus, if you don’t click as soon as your cursor is over the Feeling Lucky button, you might land up on another Google property itself. It is not the most user-friendly approach though as consumers have no idea where that click will lead them to.

The change is now live on the main google.com website but not on the country-specific Google sites. And here’s the snippet of code that generates the list of suggestions.

{     "href": "/url?url=/doodles/gideon-sundbacks-132nd-birthday",
      "msg": "I'm Feeling Doodly"
}, {
      "href": "/url?url=http://www.googleartproject.com/",
      "msg": "I'm Feeling Artistic"
}, {
      "href": "/url?url=/search?q%3Drestaurants%26tbm%3Dplcs",
      "msg": "I'm Feeling Hungry"
}, {
      "href": "/url?url=http://agoogleaday.com/",
      "msg": "I'm Feeling Puzzled"
}, {
      "href": "/url?url=/trends/hottrends",
      "msg": "I'm Feeling Trendy"
}, {
      "href": "/url?url=/search?q%3Dreflection%252Bnebula%26tbm%3Disch",
      "msg": "I'm Feeling Stellar"
}, {
      "href": "/url?url=/doodles/30th-anniversary-of-pac-man",
      "msg": "I'm Feeling Playful"
}, {
      "href": "/url?url=/intl/en/culturalinstitute/worldwonders/machiya/",
      "msg": "I'm Feeling Wonderful"
}