It’s been interesting to see how Google populates the search box for those who click the doodles that often appear on its home page, particularly since the company unleashed its Knowledge Graph results earlier this year.
Today, Google is running a doodle for Ernie Coombs, also known as Mr. Dressup, on its homepage in Canada. This would have been an opportune time for Google to showcase its Knowledge Graph results for Coombs, but Google elected to go with “Mr. Dressup Ernie Coombs” as the query it points its users to. This query yields no Knowledge Graph results, as opposed to the query “Ernie Coombs” or the query “Mr. Dressup”.
The “Ernie Coombs” result is also interesting in that it offers a “more images” option, pointing searchers to Google image results for the query – a more visual than usual rendition of Google’s Knowledge Graph results.
Google has been pushing Knowledge Graph results at seemingly every turn. The feature is even the focal point of a new Google Search App ad. Its a little surprising that Google is not tailoring its Google doodle queries to point users to the results, especially when they’re readily available. You might say the feature would add value to Google as a homepage, which the company is even advertising about.
Coombs, a children’s entertainer from Canadian television, was born on this day in 1927. He died in 2001.