The Significance of Green for Search Engines
Green is quickly becoming a very important color for search engines. And no, this does not concern cash.
"Green Energy Czar" at Google, Bill Weihl, wrote a blog post last week titled, "Is black the new green?" In it, Weihl discusses Blackle, a version of Google that uses a black background instead of the traditional white one. Blackle, which is not affiliated with Google, was started by Australian online services company Heap Media, which claims that using a black background saves energy.
Blackle bases its claim on a 2002 study that concluded that black monitor screens demanded less power than white monitor screens.
"We applaud the spirit of the idea, but our own analysis as well as that of others shows that making the Google homepage black will not reduce energy consumption. To the contrary, on flat-panel monitors (already estimated to be 75% of the market), displaying black may actually increase energy usage. Detailed results from a new study confirm this," said Weihl in his blog post.
Australian journalist Darren Yates noted his test results on his Techlogg blog. He found that Blackle did save energy on larger LCD monitors and on CRT monitors, but that "Blackle makes next to no difference, on average, with LCD monitors."
"If you’re using a 22-inch or smaller LCD screen, stick with Google if you want to keep power consumption to a minimum. However, if you have a 24-inch or larger LCD monitor, on average, Blackle is the cheaper option but it’s not a guarantee – as we said, we found one 28-inch LCD monitor that bucked that trend," Yates said in his post.
He concludes by offering this advice: "If you’re really serious about saving energy, here’s just a couple of tips that will make far more difference: switch off your computer at the end of the day and don’t bother with a screensaver, because every screensaver costs power to run."
Along with privacy, environmental friendliness is quickly becoming a battleground for search engines, which are doing all they can to garner positive press about their eco-friendly data centers and practices.
Is there a significant trend towards peripheral issues becoming just as important as the quality of a search engine’s search results? At the end of the day, the quality of search engine results pages is what will put the presidential green in the pockets of these Web giants. Nevertheless, the longevity of a well-received brand can only be helped by the display of keen awareness and concern for issues that are important to its users.
Sources:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/cmp/20070811/tc_cmp/201400248;_ylt=
ApGKzAKttl.O9koytdrFdvn6VbIF
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2007/08/is-black-new-green.html
http://blackle.com/about/
http://techlogg.com/content/view/360/31/
