Halloween easter egg: Google protects itself from zombies
You probably saw Google’s Halloween logo today:
But you may not have noticed that Google made another change for Halloween. Check out Google’s robots.txt file today:
That’s right. Zombies are disallowed from accessing /brains on Google today. You can never be too safe! 
Hat-tip to Google Blogoscoped spotting it first and to Search Engine Land for a round-up of Halloween logos.
ryan Said,
October 31, 2008 @ 7:32 am
That’s funny.
John Shehata Said,
October 31, 2008 @ 7:33 am
Hurray i am first one…. haha. that’s funny
ExitMan Said,
October 31, 2008 @ 7:35 am
It’s one of the reasons why I love them
Clem Said,
October 31, 2008 @ 7:36 am
I’m sad, I was expecting to find something behind the URL google.com/brains …
Vinay Said,
October 31, 2008 @ 7:36 am
“Zombies are disallowed from accessing /brains on Google today. You can never be too safe! ”
Only today
? He He! I wonder… 
Happy Halloween Matt!
Seth Stacey Said,
October 31, 2008 @ 7:40 am
What made this even more humorous was that I wanted to email this to someone, but I couldn’t think of anyone I knew that would get the joke. =)
Chris Parker Said,
October 31, 2008 @ 7:40 am
Zombies or Google?
Mark Simpkins Said,
October 31, 2008 @ 7:43 am
Unfortunatly when you try to access http://www.google.co.uk/brains it says google doesn’t have any brains… oh dear!
Tim Said,
October 31, 2008 @ 7:44 am
The protection may have come too late:
“The page - http://www.google.com/brains - does not exist. “
Prasenjeet Said,
October 31, 2008 @ 7:49 am
I’m not a zombie, but I can’t access http://www.google.com/brains either — there’s a 404. Surely an oversight?
Brent Said,
October 31, 2008 @ 7:50 am
It would have been cooler if they would have put some content inside /brains. Oh wait, that came out wrong!
Alex Said,
October 31, 2008 @ 7:51 am
Google is Great!
Douglas Said,
October 31, 2008 @ 7:53 am
Matt,
Do you have any comment on the other (real) disallowed agents? Like:
Disallow: /mac?
Disallow: /microsoft?
Disallow: /unclesam?
(for example)
Josh Said,
October 31, 2008 @ 7:58 am
No http://www.google.com/brains
Hmmm me thinks they could of gone one step further.
IanVisits Said,
October 31, 2008 @ 8:05 am
I notice that if I type the URL in, it says that brains does not exist.
This is worrying.
Reuben Yau Said,
October 31, 2008 @ 8:14 am
IanVisits: I just did the same LOL
Multi-Worded Adam Said,
October 31, 2008 @ 8:19 am
The YouTube Hallowe’en logo looks cooler.
David Brown Said,
October 31, 2008 @ 8:20 am
LMAO! You Googler’s have far too much fun. My fav’s are still the April Fool’s pranks! But would like to thank you for keeping the brain eating zombies at bay
Peter McDonald Said,
October 31, 2008 @ 8:39 am
Douglas those lines are not user agents but actual folders. Google are blocking all user agents from indexing those folders.
Matt Cutts Said,
October 31, 2008 @ 9:08 am
Josh and IanVisits, we don’t have any brains product; this is more of a preventative measure. You know what they say: a robots.txt a day keeps the zombies away!
Maurice Said,
October 31, 2008 @ 9:11 am
Lol to late for twitter i think there branes got eat all ready
IanVisits Said,
October 31, 2008 @ 9:18 am
As an aside, in the UK - Brains is a company which makes meatballs in gravy, which we call Faggots.
Mr Brain’s Faggots
Perma Said,
October 31, 2008 @ 9:37 am
Oh man, that’s hilarious. I lol’d
Rajesh Said,
October 31, 2008 @ 9:37 am
@Matt.. a robots.txt a day keeps the zombies away! but i thought that a robots.txt a day would keep google away!!!
If I keep altering it every day, I am sure that both i and google will get confused…lol
Daniel Sterling Said,
October 31, 2008 @ 9:39 am
how many zombie user-agent hits is google getting?
angilina Said,
October 31, 2008 @ 9:50 am
Hi Matt,
It is very nice to see you and Google always remembering different festivals and traditions. I think this is something which makes Google really special.
Yesterday, you remembered and greeted everybody a happy Diwali. That’s great
I just opened google.com but I don’t see the good looking Halloween logo [it is 31st October night here]. May be Google has removed the logo?
This is the first time I saw Google robots.txt file. I wonder why I haven’t opened this file before? I also saw the sitemap. There are so many URLs in it.
And I hope all the zombies stay away from Google
Thank You Google and Matt for always supporting different festivals.
Regards
Justin Seibert Said,
October 31, 2008 @ 11:02 am
Credit where credit is due. This is funny.
elQuique Said,
October 31, 2008 @ 12:06 pm
jajaja that’s funny yes
Calvin Froedge Said,
October 31, 2008 @ 12:13 pm
Funny lol
Amber Weinberg Said,
October 31, 2008 @ 12:13 pm
LOLOL how did you find this?
Matteo Crippa Said,
October 31, 2008 @ 12:44 pm
Matt, is google testing something new for serp sorting today?
I heared that lots of people are noticing something like this… lots of sites with good placements are dropped in the last few hours.
jeffhall Said,
October 31, 2008 @ 12:48 pm
“Zombies are disallowed from accessing /brains” … seems a bit harsh on sarah palin
Toga Said,
October 31, 2008 @ 1:34 pm
That funny lol
Patrick Said,
October 31, 2008 @ 1:42 pm
Haha, that is sweet.
Mind Said,
October 31, 2008 @ 1:47 pm
Matt I really like new feature from google searching page -
View on a timeline and View on a map that’s great
Daniel Said,
October 31, 2008 @ 5:28 pm
that’s pretty cute
Gigacore Said,
October 31, 2008 @ 6:14 pm
haha.. this post made the digg homepage
himynameis john Said,
November 1, 2008 @ 5:43 am
“ExitMan Said,
October 31, 2008 @ 7:35 am
It’s one of the reasons why I love them :)”
Couldn’t agree more!
Heck, I even put on my Myspace ‘Hero: Google’ because it’s true - the little shreds of coolness I can translate from the big G corporate cog in to the lil olé web marketing company I work for really does make a difference to morale. Just a shame that not everyone agrees that fun can also mean professional.
Ohwell. Whatever. Nevermind!
Robert Said,
November 1, 2008 @ 1:54 pm
How could I have missed seeing that logo?
They could have also blocked trick-or-treaters from accessing /candy in my opinion.
Great stuff!
Bryn Youngblut Said,
November 1, 2008 @ 1:55 pm
Hah nice and it’s still there.
Keith D Mains Said,
November 1, 2008 @ 1:58 pm
Google really do need to protect “Brains” from Zombies what with their plans to have “Brains” robots piloting their Operation Virgle craft come 2014, better to be safe than sorry!
JC Said,
November 1, 2008 @ 3:55 pm
from Pigeon Tech to Zombie protection… I’m feeling really good about them!
JC Said,
November 1, 2008 @ 3:59 pm
Not to mention they don’t like the Government:
Disallow: /unclesam?
Mike Said,
November 3, 2008 @ 6:40 am
How about..
User-agent: Edu Spam Redirects
Disallow: Google Index
http://i36.tinypic.com/tajw3s.png
Then 7/20 or rather 35% of the top 20 won’t be just .edu spam redirects.
Robert Said,
November 3, 2008 @ 11:15 pm
hmmm… Zombies are not allowed to access brains on Halloween, but was dawn of the dead on a Halloween? I would keep that there as a precaution.
Brilliant!!
CAT Said,
November 7, 2008 @ 10:39 am
Hi Matt,
I am very surprised, to see, Google actually got a SpamBuster, but maybe this is just a Halloween Joke after all ?;-)
If not, how can it be, that completely under your radar not only are a bunch of Lithuanian crooks abusing AdSense for almost 3 years now, but Google AdWords even still keeps advertising their “free hosting” which is nothing more than a honeypot to lure Millions of mostly underage users and Manga freaks into becoming webmasters of what might be one of the world’s largest Spam, Malware and Online Crime Gang so far (well unless you count some operations from China in ?;-)
Feel free to get in touch with me. So far I would have to imagine, you’re no more real than Santa Clause or Rick Astley knows about IT Security.
Cheers,
Werner