

In 2013, so many people still search for a site instead of writing the URL - basilesimon
http://journalism.basilesimon.fr/2013/11/why-on-earth-do-you-search-instead-of-typing-the-url/

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joosters
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.

~~~
basilesimon
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.

~~~
joosters
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.

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tlarkworthy
Well its funny when it goes wrong

"I want the old facebook back"

[http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/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...](http://readwrite.com/2010/02/10/facebook_wants_to_be_your_one_true_login)

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kijin
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, _get_ name.com or name
_app_.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.

~~~
geofft
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://](https://) instead of
[http://](http://), but the search-engine route is way more usable.)

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kken
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.

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PeterisP
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.

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stinos
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.

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

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gum_ina_package
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.

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

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psadri
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.

~~~
basilesimon
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.

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stephenaturner
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.

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

~~~
basilesimon
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.

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

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stratosvoukel
Uhm, should we apologize to you or something?

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

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

