Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

When I worked at Bing almost 20 years ago, the #1 search term was "Google". So maybe this is reasonable :)

(#2 was "Gogle")



Bing was launched in 2009. Where were you working in the year 2000?


I was at Microsoft, in MSN Search (which was later re-branded Bing). This was 2003.


The MSN brand had some good stuff. MSN messenger, the MSN browser (I loved it). Great work by that team.


poor guy worked for Bing, it probably felt like decades.


I wonder that the numbers look like now. I could see someone searching "MSN" for "Google" because MSN was set to their home page, or the default search. I wonder if those practices are still widespread enough to create this same effect.

Given that Chrome is the new IE, I wonder how long (or ever) until they see competitors' brands in their popular search terms.


Don't underestimate the technical illiteracy here. A significant number of people don't really understand how the address bar or an URL works in a web browser. Use web searching as a substitute of typing an URL is common, and some can't distinguish the "search" function of an address bar and the "enter an URL" function of an address bar. Searching "Google" in the address bar to access Google in Google Chrome is not unusual (sometimes you'll get a search result of 'Google' at Google, sometimes you'll be autocompleted and get a Google homepage, users don't notice the difference). This is also the underlying basis of Google's idea of abolishing the address bar - some users don't understand it, a Walled Garden is "better".

I'm not saying that I support Google's idea, just to point out a phenomenon that exists.


Back when I was in high school (~5 years, not even that much), Firefox still had separate URL and search input fields. Of course the teachers used Chrome at home and were confused on why they couldn't search on the URL field.


Similar experience here.




Consider applying for YC's Winter 2026 batch! Applications are open till Nov 10

Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: