2008 Search Quiz: We Have a Winner

Thanks to a couple generous links from Search Engine Land and Search Engine Roundtable, more than 300 people took the 2008 Search Quiz earlier this week — a huge jump over last year’s version.

All the answers have been tabulated and timed, and the winner is Elmer Cagape, who runs the SEO Hong Kong blog. Elmer was one of only a few people to get all 21 questions correct, and he did it faster than anyone. Hats off to you, Elmer! An email is on its way to get your $50 prize to you.

Quiz Results

This year’s quiz was difficult, to say the least. More than half of you missed one of the first two questions. Hehehehe. 🙂 Only 25 of you were still playing at the halfway point.

Since so few people saw the full quiz, here’s the entire Q&A for your enjoyment and edification.

Which search engine threw in the towel in March to focus instead on becoming a question-and-answer site for married females? (and then later disclaimed all of these changes)
Ask.com

In November, Google began to host 10 million previously unpublished photos from the archives of what media source?
Time-Life Magazine

Which presidential hopeful used the Search Engine Watch job board to find online marketing talent in May?
Barack Obama

What blogger, in a post about attention and fame-seekers in the SEO industry, wrote the now-classic line, “…it’ll be tough to pay the bills with a wallet full of famous”?
Lee Odden

In October, Facebook added web search capabilities from which one of the major search engines?
Live Search

In April, what Google employee said this about the Don’t Be Evil motto: “… [it] wasn’t like an elected, ordained motto. It is good PR but really it’s empty because it’s questionable whether shareholders will care”?
Marissa Mayer

Which search engine dropped its maps product in July?
Ask.com

The three major search engines came together to announce new standards for what at SMX Advanced in June?
Robots Exclusion Protocol

When Google made a special logo for Veterans Day, which branch of the US military did it mistakenly forget to include?
Coast Guard

Yahoo announced its BOSS web services platform this summer. What does BOSS stand for?
Build your Own Search Service

Which Microsoft reward program was launched first: Live Search Cashback or Live Search SearchPerks?
Cashback, in May 2008

In January, Danny Sullivan apologized to the search marketing community and what magazine Web site over a Search Engine Land article that some thought encouraged spamming?
Wired

Microsoft researchers investigated something called “cyberchondria” this year. What does cyberchondria mean?
Making yourself feel worse while searching for health information online

In October, Google changed its logo to celebrate the 50th birthday of Paddington Bear. What other children’s toy was honored on its 50th birthday by being used as the Google logo for a day in January?
Legos

Who won Search Engine Journal’s “Guest Blogging Competition” this summer?
John Carcutt

Lyndon Antcliff wrote and marketed a false story about a Texas boy stealing his dad’s credit card for a night of spending, video games, and hookers. How old was the boy in the story Lyndon created?
13 years old

In March, Google switched its home page to white text on a black background as part of what international event?
Earth Hour

In July, which search engine received a patent for the use of anchor text to determine relevancy to a search term?
Yahoo

In July, Google announced it has found how many unique URLs on the web?
1,000,000,000,000

What were the first three SearchMonkey applications that Yahoo turned on by default for all searchers?
Yahoo Local, Yelp, and LinkedIn

What Sphinn member submitted the first story that went “hot” in 2008?
Andrew Girdwood

So, there you have it. Thanks to everyone who took the quiz this year. Stay tuned to the news in 2009 because we’ll be doing another quiz at the end of the year!