Why "Yahoo" Is The #1 Search Term On Google
Google Trends indicates that over the course of 2006 the search term "Yahoo" became more popular than "sex", making it the #1 query on Google:
Yahoo apparently faces a similar dilemma with roles reversed: When you search for "Google" on Yahoo, Yahoo thoughtfully displays a second search box as if to tell you, "Hey cutie, you have a search engine right in front of you!"
A puzzling phenomenon? An strange aberration?
Stan Schroeder of franticindustries has an intriguing explanation:
I’ve noticed lately that many users have all but stopped typing domain names directly in the web browser, and started using Google instead. Instead of writing “myspace.com” as the address, they write “myspace” into Google.
I’ve seen this behavior from my coworkers and friends, but it really becomes apparent when you see the top 1000 results of Google searches. Many of the top searches, like “bebo”, “ebay”, “yahoo”, “amazon”, “myspace”, “facebook”, aren’t really searches at all - these terms are mostly written by users who know exactly which page they want, but they’ve gotten used to using Google instead of the address bar.
In addition to direct search engine queries, here are another two possible sources for these seemingly strange searches:
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Entering a term like "yahoo" (without the .com extension) into the Firefox address bar actually performs a Google search and redirects the user to the top search result. Some people are using this shortcut intentionally, while others know nothing about domains and believe that this is the way the Internet is supposed to work. |
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The Google toolbar, which has been installed by many users, is easy to confuse with the address bar. |
If users have gotten used to using search engines and search bars instead of the address bar, then this effect should be observable not just for company names but for complete domain names as well. And it is.
The Daily Domainer picked a generic high-traffic domain that receives an average of 30,000 unique visitors per month without any advertising, and analyzed what percentage of these visitors arrived at the site after having entered the site's entire domain name into a search engine.
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These statistics confirm an observable trend: An increasing percentage of surfers uses search engines (most likely through search bars) instead of their browser's address bar.
But interestingly, there is a contrary development. Large numbers of people ignore search engines entirely and type whatever they are looking for (plus .com) directly into the address bar. This doesn't just apply to well-known domains they already know exist, e.g. yahoo.com, amazon.com, etc., but also to generic domains they make up on the fly, such as candy.com, cellphones.com or greatvacations.com. This phenomenon is known as direct navigation, and more specifically as type-in traffic.
Stan continues:
Google’s model of measuring hundreds of different factors, most importantly the number of links towards a web site, to establish the importance of a web site, is winning. We already know that it’s more important to have a coolname.org domain to which thousands of site link, than to have a coolname.com which noone links to, but domain names are still selling well, just because of their name. Is it worth it? If Google doesn’t already rank it high, it’s not. Take that into consideration when buying a second-hand domain name.
While search engine traffic is an essential part of any popular website's success formula, branding and direct navigation may be just as important. In the above example, it is inevitable that coolname.org will lose significant amounts of type-in traffic to coolname.com simply because in many people's minds .com is the only extension that matters. Domainers know that .com domains typically value 10 to 20 times as much as their .net and .org counterparts, not only because they are more brandable, but also because they get accidental traffic originally destined for all other extensions.
From a website owner's point of view, relying solely on search engines is a risky strategy. What if algorithms change? What if your SEO expert inadvertently commits a mistake and your site is dropped from popular search engines? What if no-follow giants like Wikipedia keep sucking up link energy and eventually rank higher for your own name or niche than you do?
In summary, we can observe two opposite trends: People who "should" type domains into their address bar end up typing them into their search bar or search engine. And people who "should" use search engines to find what they're looking for, make up domains on the fly and type them into their address bar. You could call it the Battle of the Clueless. And the battle has only just begun.
Comments welcome. How do you search the Internet? What do you do if you're at Google and want to go to Yahoo? How about your friends? Your uncle? Your sister?
I enjoyed the article above, thank you, but I think it omits another source of type-in traffic that I feel may be underestimated in a lot of domaining circles.
Its not just the "clueless" who make up type-in traffic, its also the "clued-up". Namely webmasters and domainers who are checking what domains might be available by typing them directly in.
Not all webmasters trust the registrars with their whois queries, and not all will use whois at the command line.
Great article, and nice site.
It's often quicker to navigate that way, especially is it often wipes out typos. It's also handy to know a few "definites" - I always get my domain hosts by googling "1 1", and I download a PDF reader for a new install by googling "click here" (I get the page I want rather than the homepage). Google will also often get the correct site for your location, eg ebay.co.uk from googling "ebay"
Pretty good post, if i have the right adress, i type it, but if not, i'll google.
Btw: Yahoo.de and Google.de aren't showing any relevant results if you search for an international article, so you have to use the Y+Y.coms.
I have a bookmark link to my Yahoo! homepage on my Google homepage and vice versa.
Using a search engine like Google also obfuscates the user's history by not retaining typed URLs in the address bar- useful for computers that might not belong to the party in question (work, library, etc). For example, on my work machine, the only URL that is ever displayed as being visited is http://www.google.com A purge of the history and temporary internet files also goes a long way to keeping browsing habits private..
I have a friend that, instead of opening IE/firefox, and then going to the site, opens a Run… prompt in windows, types in http://www.google.com and then searches for whatever website he wants to find. It's pretty funny
Using the search bar is also an easy habbit to get into if you're sick of being hit by domain squatters. Often I'll remember something I'd like to view on company FooBar's site, but because I don't remember whether they managed to acquire foobar.com or had to settle for foo-bar.com, foobar.net, foobarco.com, foobarproduct.com, or something more obscure, I'll simply type FooBar into the search bar. Eventually this becomes something I'll do even if I'm 95% sure that foobar.com is the correct URL, in part out of habit and in part because I just despise domain squatters.
Of course, I still remember (and use) the addresses for eBay, Amazon, Yahoo, and so forth. But I can imagine a less savvy user who nevertheless has figured out that sometimes they type what they think is the correct address and get something completely different, but that what they were really looking for is always evident from a Google search. And I think that would be enough to turn them off of directly entering URLs entirely.
[...] justificación la encuentro de la mano de Daily Domainer, quien comenta que desde hace años se prescinde de la barra de direcciones y la gente recurre a [...]
I think homepage tendencies and lack of knowledge factor heavily. Many people don't know anything about a browser, or how to take advantage of its features. All they know is they doubleclick the 'e' (although all the hip people switch their dumb family/friends over to FF nowadays), and work inside the window.
With so many start pages set to yahoo, or the default page in Firefox, or msn, or google even, the most obvious place to type (for those who know no better) is in the middle or top of the main window, not in that box way up at the top that tells you where you are, if that is even realized.
If you have google as your startpage in IE or FF the text cursor is placed in the google search field.
The same thing happens with yahoo, my homepage. This is sometimes infuriating because I'll type something into the search or address bar and it'll jump to the yahoo search field mid-word once yahoo loads.
I use keyword search in camino/fox (sogudi in safari). When I want to search google I just type what I want to search, e.g. "foo" or "yahoo" and it takes me to the search results.
If I want to search amazon I type "amazon mybook", wikipedia is "wiki somesubject", or "weather san diego, ca".
I won't list 'em all since I use maybe 20 regularly.. imdb, ebay, sourceforge, on and on.
I rarely type a URL if I'm not certain I know it. In fact, because my regularly visited sites have keywords I almost NEVER type a URL. I search for companies by doing a google search, e.g. if I want to find microsoft I type "microsoft" and it searches google, and I click the first link which is inevitably correct for larger companies.
[...] to this article, people are so used to Googling terms that instead of typing in the extra 'www' or [...]
Another plus side at least from a designers point of view is the fact that you can see exactly where people are coming from if they use Google, Yahoo, or any other search engine. The nice part is you can sort of figure out which search engines your customers use most even if they already have an idea of where your website is.
Average people are just way too stupid to be on the internet.
I'm plenty lazy, but I use the CTRL+Enter method of adding http://www. in front and .com at the end of what I've typed, e.g. type "spamusement" and hit CTRL+Enter to go to http://www.spamusement.com.
Also I read many webcomics, so instead of remembering them all I use the Bookmarks Toolbar.
SO, I'm lazy, but a smart kind of lazy.
Ineed, Philip, the average Internet user is too stupid to be on; case in point: AOL.
"We've all heard that a million monkeys banging on a million typewriters will eventually reproduce the entire works of Shakespeare. Now, thanks to the Internet, we know this is not true." -Robert Wilensky
Samoke…using Firefox does not make you more hip, and bugging your family and "friends" just makes you annoying and less likely to get invited to next Thanksgiving dinner. It is SAD that you care what browser other people use. If they are smart enough to use IE without any problems, then let them. Just becuase you are too stupid to use it without problems doesn't mean everyone is.
This just goes to show the fundamental overlap between search engines and address bars in functionality these days; how about this, instead of having an address bar with a search window on the side, we just have the address bar. If a term entered starts with "http://" or "www." whatever, then it looks for the direct page URL and returns a search for that term if it can't be found. Otherwise, it goes straight to returning search engine results, with an option button that will either just return the top result, or just return the page with all the results. I think that that would make the browser much more space efficient and I'm surprised someone like Apple, Firefox or Opera hasn't done it yet.
There was a program sometime back that was needed to be installed on individual's computer so tehy could do this before. It's good to see it's universal now.
When I was working at HP we have access to the internet but it was monitored. So to get around that we would go to google and type in the name of the website we wanted to go to.
very curious!
nice post
[...] Tags: ituloy, angsulong, ituloy angsulong, seo, search engine, google, yahooread more | digg [...]
This is news to you ? Abberation ?You have to put all search data into context. Many power users use google for spelling rrrec
I used to work on an IT help desk for home users. 90% of the time when I was trying to direct them to a website they would type the URL I gave them into a search toolbar. None fo these people knew the difference.
Also, lets not forget the battle of the LAZY!
A lot of people don't want to type in http://www. - it's easier just to type the name into google and follow the link….
Many novice ordinary computer users lose their address bar by hook or crook .
They gravitate or figure out to use a google toolbar.
Most do not even know or notice the difference.
Insidious and scary .
Like these things are some epiphany? What the heck, you guys need to study up on regular users and how they use and interact with the browser UI. I hardly ever see a regular non techy user use the address search bar to find a site..never. I would call this OFN, but amazingly it seems this is stunning information to the industry tech experts.
[...] 2006 the search term Yahoo became more popular than sex, making it the #1 query on Google Why "Yahoo" Is The #1 Search Term On Google Daily Domainer Interesting… [...]
Thank you, great post !
I concur 100%. I blogged about the death of the address bar a few weeks ago.
http://futurafish.com/blog/?p=60
Great article. I agree with Stan Schroeder's explanation of the high usage of the search box to reach a domain. I do it often, it's just quicker sometimes.
There is another reason why some people use search engines instead of address bars to access some sites like porn.com — they simply don't want the address to be shown in the location bar.
No matter what technology these companies try to implement, they pale in comparison to the power of the average user.
I don't really care what is the top search keywords, as long as these search engines get me the result that I want.
Interesting points being made.
I tend to go directly to a website http://www.companyname.com, then http://www.companyname.co.uk then google it if I don't get the results I was expecting.
What is begining to anoy more and more though is the insistance of a lot of domain owners to have the sub domain www infront of their domain name…. ehhh pointing a browser at a url on port 80 implies that I want to hse http why do I need to add www to the front?
I really don't find it all that surprising after watching my mom use the internet. I think that we sometimes get stuck in our own little computer worlds and forget how many people actually have no clue about the internet/computers….senator what's his name Stevens?
John
http://www.monomachines.com
Many dyslexic people use google to correct spelling. Does that enter into the count and analysis ?
Although Yahoo has higher volume of searches than sex on Google, but it's not the No.1 query, "de" is, instead.
People suck.
[...] Daily Domainer reports on an interesting phenomenon–it seems that Internet users are using search engines to go to [...]
"On January 31st, 2007, Eliot said:
There are probably only 10 people in the world who do that. It doesn't make much of a difference.
[...] Replaces Sex as the #1 Seach Query on Google According to the Dailey Domainer, "Yahoo" has recently replaced "Sex" as the most popular search term on [...]
[...] Altre informazioni le trovate qui. [...]
[...] I could never understand the reasoning behind entering the word 'Yahoo' into a search engine to find the most popular site on the internet (or Ebay, Amazon, BBC, etc for that matter). When I was a teacher, I watched the way people surfed from site to site and a lot of people did just that! I found an article at the Daily Domainer discussing their thoughts on the matter. Why “Yahoo” Is The #1 Search Term On Google [...]
I don't know about the other users, but since I have a Google search box in Firefox anyway, a lot of times I will use the search engine like a dictionary. When a word is mis-spelled, the search engine will usually ask me if I want it spelled the correct way.
This seems to work even better than the dictionary that comes with Ubuntu Linux.
[...] article yesterday that mentioned that they were more searches conducted in Google for the term "Yahoo" than "sex". After reading this article I was curious what the major search terms for 2006were. Here they [...]
On authority from WordTracker (the best known keyword s/f) Yahoo doesn't even feature in the top 10.
This can be confirmed at The Top 1000 Searches in the past 48 hours - Google™ Search Tool.
There are also some interesting commennts about poeple search behaviour. And the results are unified with Amazon and eBay results.
[...] We seem to rediscover every few months that many users are typing the name of the search engine they are on into the search box. I read many disparaging remarks directed at this very large group of users and I wonder why the remarkers would think this behaviour is 'clueless' or 'dumb'? [...]
[...] is the number-one search term on Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) these days? Would you believe… it's "Yahoo"? It's odd that customers are using Google to search for Yahoo! (NASDAQ:YHOO), and this [...]
WordTracker uses MetaCrawler and DogPile, but not Google.
[...] Artigo completo no DailyDomainer. [...]
[...] Dat is grappig: de meest voorkomende zoekterm bij Google is niet sex, maar… Yahoo. Daily Domainer heeft het uitgezocht. [...]
[...] Have you serached "Google" on "Yahoo, it prompts you a serach box to use Yahoo Search! [Read more…] [...]
[...] searching for the address of a web site has reached an all time high. Google has claimed that the search for Yahoo has beaten out the search for sex in their logs. I am not sure this has much bearing on how we developers present information, but it [...]
Anyone know if this is still the case? It would be interesting to track the trends over a long time.
Very interesting but I'd also like to know if this truly is gonna continue or just a passing thing?
I have a bookmark link to my Yahoo! homepage on my Google homepage and vice versa…
I have the Google toolbar installed on Firefox so I'll just type in the site name on whichever one hits my eye first. >_>
It's amazing how many people do this. Even Godaddy has picked up on it. If you have firefox and go to Godaddy.com you are presented with a drop down ad to install the Godaddy tool bar / domain search widget. It's amazing how effective it is for them.
I work in technical support and I am shocked that these percentages are so low. Of the calls I receive I would say that 25%-40% of the users use google or yahoo searches for everything, which makes my job very difficult. I start by saying "Click in the address bar" and they still click in their google or yahoo search box.
More recently I have noticed that many users even remove the address bar from their navigation completely so that even if they had to type in the address they are unable to.
It's a sad state of affairs, and I hope the trend ends soon.
YOUTUBE!
google, control-enter, win.
myspace, control-enter, win.
fark, control-enter, win.
woot, control-enter, win.
that's how you're supposed to be doing it, noobs.
[...] terms and company names are removed from the list. Otherwise we might see something more like this… with "Yahoo" surpassing "sex" as the most popular Google [...]
I sometimes type domain into Google search box to see categories. For example when you type "yahoo.com" you'll get Movies Music Mail Games Finance Sports Home Groups Maps
It is a convenient way to go directly to what you need (if you do not know direct url) instead of loading whole Yahoo home page with images, etc.
Great article. I agree with Stan Schroeder's explanation of the high usage of the search box to reach a domain. I do it often, it's just quicker sometimes.
Using a search engine like Google also obfuscates the user's history by not retaining typed URLs in the address bar- useful for computers that might not belong to the party in question (work, library, etc).
This has a huge effect on search engine analytics. It can alter the keyword tracking that large corporations use.
I have Google set as my homepage. And if Google didn't automatically place the cursor in the search bar, I'd rarely use Google (I know, because it never used to do that.) And due to having to click on the search line before I typed in my search criteria, I would type the search in the address bar instead.. But lucky for me (and for Google), it now does. so all I hit is the alt+home key short-cut to get to Google, and immediately start typing in a search. The faster, the easier, the more it will be used. -And Google has a well-founded history of being fast and efficient.
When I type searches in my address bar, Google automatically does a search for whatever it was I typed (if it wasn't a full domain). But, it's ten times slower than using the home-page short-cut keys and then typing the search from there.
Speed and efficiency is what counts.
[...] to use a search engine, preferring instead to type a domain name into the search box (which is why Yahoo is a top search on Google and vice-versa.) The reverse, known as type-in traffic, involves typing a search topic into the address bar to [...]
I Love this sort of thing (The topic of this blog that is)
I have a lot it sussed myself and have thought of ways to conquer Google and the other search engines and beat them all at their own game using their own rules to do so and this topic is part of the how to learn to do so imho.
The address bar LOL
What is that all about it comes with strange results for most dependign where they purchased their computer the operating system from my experience
So of course people will use other methods or change the search engine that performs the searches when they type queries into the search field.
Depending where they purchased their computer the operating system installed and the make of said cmputer
Is what I meant to write
OOPS
[...] to use a search engine, preferring instead to type a domain name into the search box (which is why Yahoo is a top search on Google and vice-versa.) The reverse, known as type-in traffic, involves typing a search topic into the address bar to [...]
I have the Google Desktop 'Deskbar' in my taskbar.
If I do not already have a browser open I ALWAYS use it to launch sites.
Instead of click on FF or IE, then wait to load, then type in address then wait to load, I just type in 'hotmail.com' etc (no www needed) into the Deskbar and Viola, FFox opens with the hotmail site loaded and ready to go.
If you just type 'hotmail' into the deskbar, a google page opens with hotmail as the search, but if you add the .com, it will go directly to the site.
VERY handy for me at least, so I guess I am one of those screwing the data, so to speak.
Seems the leader is actually YouTube: http://google.com/trends?q=yahoo%2C+sex%2C+myspace%2C+ebay%2C+youtube
1. YouTube
2. Yahoo
3. Sex
4. Ebay
5. MySpace
6. Facebook
Positions 4-6 are very close.
[...] that leaves an interesting discussion - Why do people search for Yahoo in Google? - DailyDomainer points out that much of it is attributed to the fact that Google's search box has actually replaced [...]
I think Yahoo!'s remaining popularity is due to the fact that it has been around longer and people are still used to it.
Ya, yahoo they top 1 portal in world is top search term in all search engines.Myspace is also in top 10.
It's quicker to navigate with the search bar, since it often wipes out typos. Using the search bar is also great if you wnat to avoid being hit by domain squatters.
It's amazing how many people do this. Even Godaddy has picked up on it. If you have firefox and go to Godaddy.com you are presented with a drop down ad to install the Godaddy tool bar / domain search widget. It's amazing how effective it is for them.
[...] to use a search engine, preferring instead to type a domain name into the search box (which is why Yahoo is a top search on Google and vice-versa.) The reverse, known as type-in traffic, involves typing a search topic into the address bar to [...]
Hers a funny story. I have seen people open up a browser and the site that is set as the opening page is google. So to test people I tell people to go to google.com. So they type google.com in the search box when they are alreay at google. Some people…
If you just type 'hotmail' into the deskbar, a google page opens with hotmail as the search, but if you add the .com, it will go directly to the site.
I certainly have started typing the site I want directly into google instead of using the address bar. I also use "I'm feeling lucky" often as well. It somehow seems more intuitive to type it in with spaces rather than 'www' and '.com'
[...] item to the top. For the same sort of reasons reason that "yahoo" appears to be the most popular search term on Google, popularity doesn't mean interest or relevance. But it might be a good pointer, if taken as [...]
[...] up by skipping Google. Wait a minute…did I just say "skip Google"? Raise any red flags? That's right: a great deal of search engine activity isn't actually searching at [...]
I sometimes find myself just typing in the domain name into google, when I want to go to sites. I'm not quite sure why I do it, I could easily just type it in the address bar. It just happens unconsciously.
It is faster to navigate with the search bar. I have google.com set as my homepage, and since Google place the cursor in the search bar I can immediately start typing in a search.
hehe quite funny…
…nearly in every kathegory yahoo is more often searched than sex except:
india in regions
and
turkish in languages
So, a similar explain exists for so many other keywords as well…