

Google can search backwards - blago
https://www.google.com/search?sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=%E2%80%AEthe%20answer%20to%20life%20the%20universe%20and%20everything

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waqf
This is a trick with Unicode RTL. The search query in the URL contains the
character U+202E RIGHT-TO-LEFT OVERRIDE, followed by the searched-for text in
normal (nonreversed) order.

Apparently Google ignores this character when searching for matches (so the
matches are displayed normally), but the character appears when the query is
reproduced in the search box at top of the screen, so the search string
appears backwards.

~~~
praptak
This character is interesting, one more thing to watch out for in user-
provided input. You do your homework and escape HTML in users' comments but if
you don't escape the RTL overrides, their effects can "bleed" to other parts
of the page, rendering it unreadable or at least hard to read.

~~~
Figs
The bleeding over seems to apply to Google's title. In my browser, it shows up
as "xoferiF allizoM - hcraeS elgooG"...

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antimora
But did you guys know you can search a height of a celebrity?

[https://www.google.com/search?sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&#...](https://www.google.com/search?sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=hieigh+of+obama#hl=en&sa=X&ei=MRfTTtP8B-fLsQLOuvTPDg&ved=0CD4QvwUoAQ&q=height+of+obama&spell=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_cp.,cf.osb&fp=eace23dd34db2182&biw=999&bih=545)

[https://www.google.com/search?sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&#...</a><p>Try some
other celebrity

~~~
kittxkat
However, it seems to show its results only in inches and feet though.

~~~
noblethrasher
But curiously the height for Bill Gates is given in meters.

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yuvadam
Not only that, Google also does keyboard-layout mapping if you forgot to
switch your keyboard layout before searching.

For example, if I want to search in Hebrew for "חיפוש בעברית" but accidentally
typed in English and typed "jhpua gchcr," (same keys as the Hebrew chars) -
I'll still get the results I was looking for [1].

[1] - <https://www.google.com/search?q=jhpua%20cgcrh>,

~~~
rplnt
If I remember correctly from one talk, it does this by remembering how users
correct themselves.

~~~
mkopinsky
In the case of Hebrew, I doubt they go to such lengths. ןא ןד הקרט קשדט אם
בםמהקרא דןמבק פרקאאט צוביקהקרטםמק ודקד איק דשצק לקטנםשרגץ

(Google the hebrew text to decode to English. :-) )

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growt
The answer is 24.

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henryw
they might have just index that phrase backwards. if you were to search for
"hacker news" backwards, you get nothing related.
[http://www.google.com/search?gcx=w&sourceid=chrome&i...](http://www.google.com/search?gcx=w&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=swen+rekcah)

~~~
ricardobeat
[http://www.google.com/#sclient=psy-
ab&hl=en&safe=off...](http://www.google.com/#sclient=psy-
ab&hl=en&safe=off&site=&source=hp&q=%E2%80%AEhacker%20news&pbx=1&oq=bacon&aq=f&aqi=g4&aql=&gs_sm=e&gs_upl=2304l2701l0l2827l5l3l0l0l0l0l371l371l3-1l1l0&fp=1&biw=1056&bih=679&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.,cf.osb&cad=b)

~~~
henryw
Interesting that you can do this if you put all those url parameters in. But
the default google search won't get you these backwards results. if you go to
google.com and enter "swen rekcah", you won't get these results.

Also, the url contains &q=%E2%80%AEhacker%20news& which is not hacker news
backwards.

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andrewhillman
so can bing, yahoo and every other search engine.

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espeed
looc s'taht llew

~~~
narad
when I searched that, Google is showing results for "loc state law". :-)

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namank
This is cool! So Google is Wolfram Alpha for everything in the world?

