Google Logo Sliced

Why?

[anallawalla]

While using IE Booster I noticed that the Google logo is sliced at "Goo" gl" "e" and the bottom of the "g". All are linked to the Simple Search.

Is this just merely a speed-up technique? I can understand that but why this peculiar combination of slices?

- Ash

[Visit Thailand]

Only a guess but it may make it easier to do their occasional themed logo's. If it is sliced they do not need to alter the whole load but can alter just a slice.

That however does not really seem worthwile.

[TallTroll]

The usual reason to slice images is to apply different optimisation to each slice, to end up with the smallest possible image. Given the number of times the Google logo gets requested each day, I would imagine that saving just a few bytes per time would add up to a measurable saving in bandwidth costs. Also, a sliced image will generate multiple, smaller TCP/IP packets, so there may be some sort of network optimisation thing behind it (separate image server per slice, all using low spec machines for instance)

[anallawalla]

In that case would they not slice each letter and filter out colours not used? The way they have done it doesn't support that. The bottom of the g being sliced makes sense, but the top of the g has a bit of the o and the l on either side.

Also, they have a link from each slice, so that's a few more bytes - which may negate the benefit.

As an aside, would a service like Akamai be able to cache only the logo (if someone wanted to go to that extent)?

I like the packet size angle.

- Ash

[Condor12]

It could be as simple as the image is split into a table so the same image can be used with different sites, ie the uk version has text "uk" under the "l".
Having the image split means it can be under the "l" and next to the "g" and not under the whole "google"

[korkus2000]

I think it is a little bit of both optimization and needing different logos. The choice of splicing looks to accomadate a "UK" or another country code, but splicing it in the first place is an optimization decision.

[dmorison]

At least they don't serve flags anymore.

I hadn't heard of Webmaster World when that happened - did anyone from Google get to the bottom of it?

Updated:

Should have used the site search earlier - sorry! :)

[edited by: dmorison at 12:47 pm (utc) on May 22, 2003]

[edit_g]

We need Googleguy - why does he never come around anymore? Where is he? Googleguy?! He's abandoned us!

;)

[bcc1234]

I like the packet size angle.

Don't forget that even with HTTP/1.1 where connections are reused by default, each HTTP request-response has two headers which sum up to a few hundred bytes. So it's not always worth it.

[limbo]

4 slices = 4 links

Google trying to increase their PR?

[anallawalla]

I seem to have cancelled an earlier reply.

I was talking about the slices in the Advanced Search view, where I haven't seen the country name, so out goes that theory.

Anyway, to facilitate that in the Simple Search page, only the bottom of the g needs to be lopped off and the country name can still fit in nicely to its right.

If we see a decent explanation, it should be quite interesting.

[edit_g]

Bump. Someone must be reading this. It ain't sliced anymore.

[korkus2000]

Nice find. Seems odd that it would change right after this conversation. Makes me think the slice was a hold over and got reevaluated.

[Chris_R]

Actually it used to be one logo and I remember them switching to the four slices.

Now it is one logo:

8558 bytes

Old logo
4277
2953
2702
1410
=11342 bytes

They always do stuff to their home page - I remember when they just used:

<style><!--
body {font-family: arial,sans-serif;}
//--></style>

I like that cause I like something simmple to put in my header to make all the type the same font

[anallawalla]

Wow, did I just contribute to a 25% speed improvement for millions of users? I now look forward to receiving the special submission form so that my pages are always #1 in the SERPs. :)

Actually, the logo that I noticed originally (in the Advanced Search) is still all cut up and feeling miserable:

Image, Alt tag, width, height, size in bytes:

res0.gif "Go to Google Home" 110 58 3,648 B
res1.gif (not set) 38 58 1,704 B
res2.gif (not set) 52 58 1,538 B
res3.gif (not set) 38 20 0,716 B

Total size = 7606 bytes.

Depending on how one crops the composite image off a search form, you can reduce it to 4669 B as a .gif or 2989 B as a .jpg with 60% quality.

The link from the image to the Simple Search is still a puzzle.

[renaultzero]

I vote for the multiple country theory (the answer is actually in the code)

One other possible explanation would be a deterrence to image theft, though three slices would not be much of one... a few quick copy n' pastes and you have a fully functional 'Google'

Here is a slice n' dice for all of you to chew on:

Check out the image links on Adobe's site for Acrobat and the PDF online creator. At first glance, I had thought that they might be using a pixel for any solid color slices and just increasing the height/width of the image through code (for that MAXIMUM optimization). But upon snagging a few of the jpgs, I realized that it was not the case. Some of the colors even overlap where it could have been easily avoided... Not to mention ANY bytes saved were most definitely lost in the code gained (+4kb!). I reconstructed the image, switched it to a gif and found it was only 1.6kb in size (jpg was 2.2)... quite a ridiculous amount of trouble for such a small image to begin with, wouldn't you say?

Which leads to me suggest the theft deterrence possibility in both cases

maybe they are just promoting ImageReady...

maybe someone was just really bored...