Google’s 2002 April Fools’ prank about ranking pages by pigeon pecks was called PigeonRank.
PigeonRank was a parody of Google’s real PageRank system, which evaluates the importance of web pages through links and other signals. The joke pretended that trained pigeons could identify useful search results by pecking at them, supposedly producing fast and efficient rankings.
Google’s spoof used computer-science wordplay, including references to Linux and a fictional “lin/ax kernel” based on pigeons’ supposed diet of linseed and flax. It also humorously claimed that the system avoided animal cruelty, adding to the mock technical tone.
The name is sometimes confused with PageRank or Penguin, but Penguin was the name of a later Google search-algorithm update, not this 2002 hoax. PigeonRank was never a real Google ranking technology.