So a lot of people have probably heard the phrase "All roads lead to Rome". In Latin (just cuz I'm a Latin nerd), this would be "omnes viae Romam ducunt". However, this exact phrase was not actually used by Romans. Instead, as revealed by a quick Google search, the phrase used at the time was actually "Mille viae ducunt homines per saecula Romam", or "A thousand roads lead men forever to Rome". Stupid Romans and their weird grammar...
Anyway, this blog has gotten off topic. I've noticed something about Google searches, and many of you have probably noticed it as well. Basically, Minecraft related things often pop up unexpectedly in the results of searches not aimed towards content from the game. As you may have heard, Google has recently implemented an info panel with item ids and other useful data that appears on the results page when searching for Minecraft blocks, items, and other features:



But Minecraft's permeation into simple Google searches existed long before this new addition. Here's a couple of search suggestions that popped up when I typed in some words that weren't directly about Minecraft:






Because I'm a LOTR nerd:







And finally:



But where this phenomenon really becomes apparent is in the Google image search results. The following are just a couple examples; I know I've found several other instances where Minecraft results popped up when I wasn't expecting them, but I can't remember what I searched exactly. Obviously, the keywords used in these searches could be connected to Minecraft, but it's still really surprising that Minecraft images were in the first page of images resulting from very generic images.

"zombie"
(realistic zombies = much creepier)


"Colosseum"
(surprisingly, the video that the cover belongs to is actually not that poplular: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVqe4TnBOYo)


"pickaxe"
(pretty obvious, but it was really high up on the page!)


"stick"
(that unicorn stick makes me so happy)


"end"
(first in the extended search suggestions!)


"block"
(probably the most general of the searches I made)


"andesite"
(wow, the texture is pretty accurate!)


"cobblestone"
(expected this one)


"torch"
(I want one of those torch toys)


"dirt"
(congrats MumboJumbo, you're popular on Google too!)


Keep in mind, all these pictures were not too far down the first page on results! Kind of scary to be honest. But it shows how wildly popular Minecraft has become since its creation. I did try out a lot of other generic searches like "sheep" or "grass" which did not yield any Minecraft results on the first page. But my guess is that if I had kept scrolling down, I would have found a cute pixely sheep munching on some 16x16 grass buried in pictures of lawns and farm animals. So can it be said that "all searches lead to Minecraft"? Accurately, no, but it certainly applies in quite a lot of surprising circumstances.

Thanks for reading!