A friend of mine was searching for the keyword “Google” on Google.com.eg (Egypt) when he found something very weird, which he told me to check out. I have to say this drove me crazy for the last 7 hours and I couldn’t find any reasonable explanation, so I’m here to share this puzzle with you.

Guess who comes at the #1 spot when you search for the keyword “Google” from any Egyptian IP address? Well, see for yourself:

Shocking… Right?

This Egyptian HVAC Technician is ranking #1 in organic search results with a Google Places listing that outranks Google’s own knowledge graph snippet. His business name doesn’t even include the keyword nor is it in any way related.

At first, I thought maybe these are some personalized results (still not a reasonable explanation.) Anyway, I tried turning on Incognito mode and still received the same results. Still, that wasn’t enough for me to believe it, so I asked 4 friends of mine to search for both the keywords “Google” and “جوجل” (Google in Arabic letters) and tell me if they saw this weird listing or not. After checking, they all told me he is rank #1 for “Google” and #2 for “جوجل” Some of them even tested Desktop and Mobile search and received the same results.

Now that I know this is a country-wide ranking, I told myself it must be a short-time “glitch”, rather than a consistent ranking. However, if you clicked on the “See photos” link under the guy’s photo, you will go to his Google Plus page. I know that Google Plus publicly declares how many views each page has received.

So, I clicked to check the number of views and I was shocked again. His page had received 3,550,628 views, which is a sign that his top ranking spot has been there for a while. BTW, he doesn’t post anything interesting, just some photos of the appliances he could fix. Anyway, Google Plus is among the least used social networks in Egypt, so there is definitely no way that he could have got millions of views through organic reach on Google Plus.

Note: It took me around 45 minutes to write this post, during which his page received an extra 86,000 views after I took this screenshot. You can check his current page views here.

I know there is no such thing as a “flawless algorithm.” However, why would Google think that this HVAC technician’s page is the most relevant thing to show when people search for Google’s exact-match brand keyword?!

I actually believe that “Google” is the most difficult keyword to rank for. Nobody should be able to outrank Google for their own name on their own search engine. It is like the only thing that holds “the matrix” from falling apart. At least for SEOs.

I spent a couple of hours trying to find a link between this listing and the keyword “Google.” Here is the only thing I was able to find; it looks like Mr. Saber entered this page in the Website URL field on his Google Plus profile. It is just a link to a Google Search for his Twitter handle. But I’m sure this is not the reason; at least it shouldn’t be.

Enough digging. Just call the guy!

After hours of confusion, I decided to contact Mr. Saber to see if he even knows that he is outranking Google. I got my phone, called him and I have to say; I will never forget this call for the rest of my life, as it was hilarious. Here’s how it went:

— Hello, is this Mr. Saber?

— Yes, who are you?

— My name is Eyad Nour. I work in the field of Digital Marketing and I noticed that you’re ranking #1 on Google. Did you know this?

— Yes, a lot of people called me and told me that Google made a website about me.

— No, I mean Google Search. When people search for the word “Google”, you come first. Did you know that?

— No. I just find people calling me and telling me they saw “my Google.”

— So, you never tried to do anything to promote your page?

— What page?

— Your page on Google Plus?

— No, I just published it using my email which was created back in 2009, which is why I get a lot of people visiting my profile because of I have old email there.

— Actually, I think it takes more than that. What happened with you is very rare. You are ranking #1 for the word “Google” on their own website, which I have never seen in my life. You are ranking above Google itself.

— So people think I am the “mother company” of Google? *Laughing loud* This is great. I never thought about that. It all started a week ago when I noticed a lot of people calling me every day. Sometimes I even turn off my phone so I can sleep. Actually, most of them don’t even know what I do, but maybe you can teach me how to get more people?

— I teach you?! You’re the master now! You teach me, master! I was calling you so you can tell me how you did it.

— *He laughing for 10 seconds* You sound like a funny person. I think we could be friends. Look, you can come to my place at _______ St. and then […] I will let you look into my computer to find out what I did. Maybe I clicked on something by mistake.

— *Me laughing* I wish it was that easy. We can’t find the reason for your rankings on your computer files. Anyway, I do really appreciate your time and feel free to call me anytime if you need advice. I wish you the best.

— Thank you, my friend. I will save your number right now and call you later.

Here’s the difference between you and me; you search Google. I AM GOOGLE! #TheGoogleMan

Ladies and gentlemen, I have found my master. All hail the king. He is more “Google” than Google itself. ☺

I’m eager to hear your comments about this. Also, if you have any reasonable explanation for this, please let me know… I won’t be able to go on with my life without a logical explanation.

Just start a conversation about this with your marketing peeps or submit it to reddit or Hacker News. Let’s see if we can solve this puzzle. Feel free to mention @eyadnour if you want me to join in.

I will be updating this article with any reasonable explanations that you suggest.