Google celebrates British Museum’s anniversary with a doodle
Howard Lake | 15 January 2014 | News
Google UK today marks the British Museum’s 255th anniversary with a Google Doodle depicting the institution, its iconic buildings, and two of its artefacts.
The prominent image links through to search results about the London-based Museum. Although there is no fundraising message, such prominence on Google, even for just one day, is a rare money-can’t-buy opportunity for a charity or not-for-profit organisation.
The British Museum was established in 1753 after the scientist Sir Hans Sloane had bequeathed his collection of more than 71,000 curiosities to King George II for the nation. It was the first national public museum in the world.
2013 was the Museum’s most successful year to date for visitor numbers, with 6,701,036 visits recorded.
Google doodles are illustrations that mark anniversaries of historic events, the lives of famous or significant people, key dates in the calendar, and milestones for notable organisations.
About Google doodles
The first Google doodle was created in 1998 but it wasn’t until 2000 that doodles started to appear on the search engine’s site. From the outset they were designed to “enliven the Google homepage and bring smiles to the faces of Google users around the world”.
Will Google produce a doodle for your charity’s significant anniversary? You can ask. Google advises:
“The doodle team is always excited to hear ideas from users – they can email pr*******@go****.com with ideas for the next Google doodle. The team receives hundreds of requests every day so we unfortunately can’t respond to everyone”.
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It doesn’t have to be a doodle specifically about your charity. A doodle celebrating a charity founder can also reap benefits.
According to Kat Hannaford in What Happens When Your Site Gets Google Doodle’d?, Marie Curie Cancer Care saw a 1000% traffic increase by lunchtime on the day that Google’s doodle marked the 144th birthday of Marie Curie in November 2011.
Today’s Google doodle reminds us that Marie Curie is 144 … but Marie Curie Cancer Care (@mariecurieuk) is “a sprightly 63”!
— Claire Kerr (@snotforprofit) November 7, 2011
The charity was the top search result on the page that the image linked to. It had not received any warning from Google, so worked hard on the morning to ensure the site handled the increased traffic. It seems that the increase traffic did not produce much in terms of donations, but it did lead to a small increase in the number of volunteer registrations for the charity’s collection events such as the Great Daffodil Appeal.
About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.