Google's search engine currently rummages through roughly 4,285,199,774 web pages from across the globe. If you were type the English word 'troubleshoot' into Google, what topics would you expect to find at the top of the list?


No points awarded to anyone who guessed that the top-ranked page would belong to Microsoft, publisher of the world's most trouble-free operating system and software.



We at Brainsnap are as shocked and surprised as you that a reputable company like Microsoft is number one of the 'troubleshoot' search engine results category. We've wracked our brains and come up with only five possible explanations.

• It is a simple coincidence.
• Microsoft has used metatags and tweaked its web pages to dishonestly gain dominance of the troubleshoot category.
• Sunspots and solar flares.
• Aliens.
• Microsoft's software is more problematic than anything else on earth that might require a good 'troubleshoot'.

If curiosity prompted you to click on that link at the top of Google's search results for 'troubleshoot', you would find yourself at

http://v4.windowsupdate.microsoft.com/troubleshoot/

This page is not, however, a page devoted to troubleshooting Microsoft's very flawed Window's Update but is in fact an empty page with only a blue Microsoft banner at the top.

This result does not represent an error on the part of Google's search engine bots, but - on the contrary - should be recognized as one of life's little ironies. After all, if one really needed a pithy statement about the effectiveness of Windows Updates, an empty page with a Microsoft logo would be a logical choice. Well, we hope you're seeing an empty page; Microsoft has blocked this site to anyone not using their Internet Explorer web browser. (For more info about why people are using alternative web browsers, go here.)



If you were to do a google search on, say,

problems + windows + sp2



your enquiry will elicit over 700,000 pages.



In fairness to Microsoft Corporation, the following is a statement from an official Microsoft spokesman on the topic. His name has been withheld in order to save his career.



"Results like these are pretty meaningless. A search for 'homosexual cows' elicits 109,000 pages of search results. The internet is just like that."



We of course immediately wrote back and asked how he knew this but received the usual "no comment" line standard from any cornered Microsoft executive.



If, in a moment of tormented desperation late at night, you typed only the word 'help' into Google, you will be relieved to know that Microsoft does not achieve top rank status - Mental Help Net does.
Microsoft is, however, only third from the top. And this is as it should be. As most Windows users would agree, getting to Mental Help Net is far more useful than reaching support.microsoft.com

Editors note: brainsnap runs on entirely opensource software, including server technology. We probably have nothing against Microsoft and are only kicking them because we're allegedly a pro-collaborative, anti-corporate organization harboring a dangerous liberal agenda.