Web search engine Google
changes name to 'Topeka'
on April Fool's Day
You'll need a search engine to find the Google logo on the web portal's homepage Thursday morning.
Instead, Web surfers woke up to find the search engine's name officially changed to "Topeka" - at least for one day.
The change is purportedly a return gesture to Topeka, Kanasas, whose mayor unofficially renamed the city "Google, Kansas," for the month of March in an effort to land a spot on Google's "Fiber for Communities" program. The initiative, launched this year by Google, promises to install new broadband cables in random communities around the United States.
"We've been wondering ever since how best to honor that moving gesture," a spokesperson wrote on the company's official blog. "Today we are pleased to announce that as of 1AM (Central Daylight Time) April 1st, Google has officially changed our name to Topeka."
Google, or rather Topeka, announced wide-sweeping changes to the company to go along with the name change: Employees will be referred to as "Topekans" instead of "Googlers" and a push to use "Topeka'ed" as a verb in Web searches.
That Thursday is also April Fool's Day may be coincidental.
Skeptics may wonder how long the search engine's name change will last, considering Topeka, Kansas, has already gone back to its old name.
"We are very proud of our city and Topeka is an Indian word which means 'a good place to grow potatoes,' Topeka mayor Bill Bunten told CNN in early March. "We're not going to change that."
