Or to paraphrase Mark Twain, reports of its death are greatly exaggerated.

I was interested to read a couple of days ago in the generally useful and interesting China Net Investor blog that Google appeared to have dumped its controversial "Guge" name from its Chinese Web site. The report came from a post on Search Engine Journal's blog by Shanghai-based Gemme van Hasselt who also keeps the China Snippets blog, which syndicates my other blog Imagethief (thanks, Gemme!). However, a look at Google.cn. showed that the "Guge" brand is still alive and kicking. Still, it wasn't hard to believe that Google had dropped Guge, which was greeted in China with a resounding raspberry.

Guge (谷歌), which means "valley song" or "harvest song" in Chinese, was launched as Google's Chinese brand name last April, in the interest of having a name that could be legally registered in China and which would be pronounceable by Chinese users. Unfortunately, as poetic as the meaning might be, Guge rapidly earned the scorn of Chinese Net users along with a wicked Web site rubbishing the new name. In a poll launched by that site, the top vote earner among potential names was Gougou (狗狗), which means "doggy", and was one of the names by which Google was already informally known in China. The lesson there may be not to let the Chinese public name your brand, no matter how dimly your own suggestion has been received.

Nevertheless, six months later, the world--or China at least--has more or less come to terms with Guge, it would seem. The mysterious vanishing Guge might be a case of Google's regular stunt by which it temporarily puts up a logo invoking a holiday or historical event that falls on a given date. The Guge-less logo that Gemme posted happens to have a mooncake and a full moon on it, and would seem to commemorate the Chinese Mid-Autumn (or mooncake) festival which, as it happens, peaked with the full moon that occurred on the day of Gemme's post. I have a fridge full of uneaten mooncakes to prove it.

It's possible that the "mooncake" Google logo was appropriated from Google Hong Kong or Singapore, where Mid-Autumn Festival would also be observed, but where "Guge" would not be used.

Now you see it...

Now you don't.

So "Guge" is alive and kicking. And, if the name has been used on Chinese company registrations, it seems likely to stick around for the long term, even if it does someday get removed from the logo. As for what your average Chinese Net user calls Google? Well, you can take a look at the list on the "No Guge" Web site for some ideas. As for me, I have some mooncakes to eat.

Previously:
Google aground in China, MySpace sailing for trouble?
What do Chinese users want from Google?
Guge a gufe? (on Imagethief)