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:
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.
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.
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?
