In a move that is sure to bring some reaction, Google has added a Google Play promotional link to their homepage for the annual Star Wars Day, with a link titled “May the Fourth be with you”.

When you click the link, it takes you to the Google Play store.

Google has long been known for their minimalist homepage, without any ads, which is in stark contrast to Yahoo’s ad heavy homepage.

In the past, Google has reserved that spot for disaster relief or when a notable industry person such as Steve Jobs passed away.   We have also seen promotions for touring Middle Earth, but again, it wasn’t a promotional link encouraging a purchase online.

Google has occasionally used it for Android related products and announcements, such as a Nexus One promotion. Promoting commercial products outside of Android is new however.  And that link could be worth millions… and that was by 2010 estimates.

And for those curious, it is a followed link from Google’s homepage, and it is not blocked from indexing by robots.txt.

<a class=”gb_ob” href=”https://play.google.com/store/movies/collection/promotion_4000f3d_star_wars?utm_source=global_OO&amp;utm_medium=hpp&amp;utm_content=May0415&amp;utm_campaign=StarWars&amp;pcampaignid=MKT-Other-global-all-OO-hpp-mo-StarWars-May0415-1″>May the Fourth be with you</a>

And a screenshot of the HTML of the link.

The page in question is in the search results, however it was already indexed prior to this promotion.  We will see if that changes throughout the day, Google has changed links in the past when it could seem that the links are passing PageRank for commercial pages and searches on other parts of Google.

Google is also running it on mobile devices.

Link aside, it is nice to see Google honoring a geek’s holiday with a shout out on their homepage, even if they do hope you buy the movies on Google Play 🙂