In 2013, so many people still search for a site instead of writing the URL

http://journalism.basilesimon.fr/2013/11/why-on-earth-do-you-search-instead-of-typing-the-url/

by basilesimon • 13 years ago

12 24 13 years ago

journalism.basilesimon.fr

stasy• 13 years ago

I almost never go to search engines. Even if I have to, I just type the query into the URL bar.

kijin• 13 years ago

I don't do this with well-known sites like Google and Twitter, but sometimes I deliberately search a website's name even when I think I know what its URL is. This helps me avoid landing on a similar but unrelated -- and possibly fraudulent -- website, especially if the website I'm looking for uses an unconventional domain name. Too often, it's impossible to remember whether the startup I just heard about uses .com, .net, .io, getname.com or nameapp.com.

Fortunately, with modern browsers, the difference is only between typing "websitename" in the address bar and typing "websitename.TLD" in the same bar. So if I'm not 100% sure what your TLD is, I just hit Enter and the browser shows me the search results.

chaz• 13 years ago

I also find navigating through Google helpful when a company has multiple TLDs for different countries, or different companies in different TLDs own the same name. Google is great at knowing what I want.

A variation on this one is when I know which site I want to go to and which specific page: "amazon method dish soap refill." Google search is typically faster than going to the site and then using their internal search.

basilesimon7• 13 years ago

I do the same for my bank and some e-commerce websites.

However, I never do that for websites I read daily. Either I know the URL or the browser remembers it for me.

Apart for exceptions (deliberately trying to find the good url or finding a specific website), searching is illogical.

That would be exactly like asking your GPS the way from work to home every single day.

geofft• 13 years ago

Yeah, I've made a habit of this too -- what is the _advantage_ for me in typing in, say, python.org when there's a risk I might be misremembering it as python.com?

I believe there's also a slight security advantage, in that search engines will index and respect redirects to HTTPS (even without HSTS), and if I click through the search engine link, I stay on SSL for the entire transaction since the search query itself is HTTPS. This protects me against a man-in-the-middle when possible, and also saves me the annoyance of getting an SSL error when not. (I am also training myself to type https:// instead of http://, but the search-engine route is way more usable.)

weland• 13 years ago

Why not just use bookmarks? Hitting one takes even less time than searching for the URL...

gum_ina_package• 13 years ago

The reason I think this happens is because two of the main browsers (IE and Chrome) have a major interest in maintaining the status quo. They might even possibly be making it more advantageous for users to search for a website instead of navigating directly to it on it's URL. The more searches, the more ad revenue.

basilesimon7• 13 years ago

If it was their intention, why introducing autocompletion - a functionality which, if used correctly, allows to avoid search engines for queries.

tlarkworthy• 13 years ago

Well its funny when it goes wrong

"I want the old facebook back"

http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/i-want-the-old-facebook-back

http://readwrite.com/2010/02/10/facebook_wants_to_be_your_on...

martius• 13 years ago

I think that search engines are commonly used instead of URLs in countries where the occidental alphabet is not the standard one.

basilesimon7• 13 years ago

Did not think about that. It would be worth exploring the difference in the top searches in, say Europe/US and in Asia or the Gulf.

kken• 13 years ago

I just starting doing it a couple of years ago when browsers began to support searching from the address bar. Why do it do it? Sometimes I don't know the exact URL of a site (is it .org or .net), sometimes I want to avoid entering scam sites, sometimes I am just lazy and want to type less.

joosters2• 13 years ago

People do it because it is quick and easy. If Google is your homepage, then when you start typing stuff in, it goes into the search box and not the address bar. Typing 'facebook' and pressing return is pretty damn quick and saves some of the clicking and mouse moving. I know lots of people who do this. My parents don't really understand the address bar, for example.

As a side note, the author's arrogance is irritating. He can't think of a reason why people do something, so he declares it 'irrational', 'dumb', 'stupid' and 'highly illogical'. Perhaps he should have paused and considered that there could have been a reason behind the actions of so many people.

basilesimon7• 13 years ago

The Google homepage seems like a very valid point. But when you open a new tab, you are typing in the address bar - and the autocompletion is enabled.

Ah, the irritative arrogance. I am quite happy about it because it led to a fair amount of exchanges about what I wrote, including yours. What I really can't understand is - and my point of view is very likely to be biaised by my own experience - why do people do not go for the fastest and what seems to me the easiest way? I'm very sure you can help me with that.

joosters2• 13 years ago

People don't know the easier ways, and they stick with what works for them?

My experience is mostly with my parents and other more elderly relatives, who are fine with googling stuff but haven't really got the hang of what an address bar even is.

As for 'when you open a new tab', I don't think my parents even understand or use tabs. Also, for older people, precision mouse movements to click into the (relatively small) address bar are fiddly (and then you have to delete the text that is already there...), whereas the big search result boxes are much easier to click on. Speaking of which, they will often click on the top advert for a website rather than the search result. They don't see the difference, and they both take them to the website...

I stand by my points about your arrogance. Failing/not bothering to see other peoples' points of view, or even considering the possibility of your own lack of knowledge, is not an attribute to be proud about.

stinos• 13 years ago

Didn't Opera have 'omnibox'-like features already way earlier than 2008? At least I've been using it for over a decade and it seems like ages ago I ever visited a search page directly instead of searching via the address bar. The only time I'd do it now is to get the correct url to enter in Opera's 'Manage Search Engines' dialog.

basilesimon7• 13 years ago

I can't find it on Wikipedia. If you do, please let me know so I can update the article.

stratosvoukel• 13 years ago

Uhm, should we apologize to you or something?

basilesimon7• 13 years ago

Nah, just telling me how do you behave when it comes to typing URLs will do the job :)

psadri• 13 years ago

For us software engineers, the details of how something is implemented become more important than the goals they serve. Navigating to a site using a URL is such a detail. Main stream people only care about the end goal. Searching for a site name is "simpler" than entering a cryptic URL.

basilesimon7• 13 years ago

When talking about webpages consulted on a regular basis (like facebook, for example), thanks to the 'omniboxes', there is no such thing as URLs anymore, don't you think? The browser does all the work in a few keyboard hits.

deepakbenny• 13 years ago

people just hate writing www. and .com as simple as that

PeterisP• 13 years ago

Using the search engine is the safe way - sometimes the link I remember is wrong (say, sitename.com instead of sitename.org) and is held by some squatter peddling spyware downloads; but if I type 'sitename' in google, then it brings me to the proper site.

It doesn't do it 100% perfectly, but it certainly does it better than I do myself.

And why would I ever write any domain name (other than my own servers) at all? If I see a link, then I click the link; If I remember a link then autocompletion remembers it as well - I just hit 'n'+enter in the address/search bar to go to news.ycombinator.com.

stephenaturner• 13 years ago

This is mostly from people mistaking the search box for the address box and just putting in the URL there and not knowing there's an extra step in this that they could avoid.

In 2013, so many people still search for a site instead of writing the URL

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