Canada got its own Google Doodle today – featuring the new Google logo – celebrating the first day of school on Google.ca. While many schools in other parts of the world, including the US, have already gone back to school, the Tuesday after Labour Day in Canada is traditionally the first day back to school for Canadians.
The Google Doodle shows the letter “G” as the teacher in a classroom complete with Canadian maple leaves on the chalkboard in the background. It is an animated doodle with the remaining letters walking into the classroom and sitting and desks, with the letters “e” and “l” swapping places after realizing they are sitting in the wrong spots and spelling the name as “Googel” first.
This one is particularly interesting, because it also features a nofollowed link to “Google tips for heading back to school” that appears below the search box.
It leads to a Google Tips page about “55 tips to make this school year yours” which seems to be part of Google for Education. It features many uses for Google products that would help students going back to school, which leads to things like Google Maps, choosing a secure password and even learning code.
The Google Doodle itself also leads to a search on Google.ca for “First Day of School Canada“, although the web result – or more specifically the featured snippet – could have been a bit better. Currently, when clicking through the Google Doodle, the featured snippet shows a result for the first day of school in Ireland and not Canada, although a Canada specific snippet could be found on the same linked page.
As always, it is nice to see Google with Canada specific Google Doodles, as Canadians mostly see ones that are also active elsewhere in the world.
Jennifer Slegg
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Wendy Osborn says
Google was wrong in assuming that Canadians all went back to school the day after Labour Day. Elementary and Secondary School students in Alberta and Saskatchewan went back a week before that (Sept 1). Also, most students in Manitoba don’t return to school until Today (September 9th) or later).
so therefore, Google saying that it is the “first day of school in Canada”, is actually incorrect.
Jennifer Slegg says
Here in BC it has always been the day after Labour Day 🙂 I believe the same is true in Ontario based on Facebook posts I saw too.