If you add &btnI to the end of a query link, it makes an "I'm feeling lucky" link.
I used it recently in a RSS feed I was making for events where I didn't have websites for the events. I made queries with the title, date and location and added &btnI to the end. It's not perfect, but pretty good.
I wish Google would integrate "I'm feeling lucky" into Chrome.
For example, I Google "bootstrap" a few times every weekday. I know Google's first result will be correct. I'd love to be able to shift-enter or something in chrome after entering a search term to skip the Google SERP entirely.
In Firefox I can create a bookmark to https://www.google.com/search?btnI=lucky&q=java+6+%s with the keyword set to jd then by typing (say) "jd Collections" in the address bar I get directed to the first Google result for "java 6 collections"
I gather you can emulate a similar behavior in Chrome using its 'edit search engines' function.
As a rather shameless plug, using DDG allows you to do the exact same thing if you add an exclamation mark without even having to make a custom search engine.
I don't know why, but when I type "google.de" in the address bar, hit TAB, enter my search term and hit ENTER, it sends me directly to the first search result. Doesn't work with .com though...
I remember the first time my mother used Google. She saw the "I'm feeling lucky" button, thought it was an ad for online gambling, and became upset that I was directing her to use such a tool.
I really wouldn't miss it if they got rid of it entirely.
While I never use the button, the underlying functionality is incredibly useful for special-purpose search shortcuts to things like reference documentation where the top result for a specific key word or phrase is very likely to be the one you're looking for. The example I use dozens of times a day is "universal context-sensitive help": for instance, I have Alfred.app set up with a shortcut mapping "msl SOMETHING" to the the "I'm feeling lucky" result for "site:msdn.microsoft.com SOMETHING", so, e.g., "msl CreateFile" will, with very high probability, take me to the reference page for the Win32 CreateFile function, and — here's the important bit — I can set up similar shortcuts for any documentation site in about a minute.
One case I found at my last job where the interstitial Google search result saved the day was when searching for the MFC class CString. As it turns out, the most popular thing out there called a CString has nothing at all to do with programming, and if I'd done an "I'm feeling lucky" on it, well, no doubt my boss would have walked past at just the wrong moment...
Most likely because people expect to see it but few use it. So now the few who still use it will be surprised (pleasantly or otherwise), word will spread, and people who didn't use it before will start using it again with the new functionality. So instead of removing a classic UI element of the classic Google homepage they just changed the functionality. I think that's logical.
And here comes the backlash. The last remaining people who use that button and those who are just upset because they were alerted to a change anywhere will all come out of the woodwork to try to convince us all that Google is evil, stupid, etc. because they use the button or they somehow know better.
Google doesn't just make changes at random. There must be a very compelling reason to change the "I'm feeling lucky" button. The simplest explanation is that no one uses it anymore. Good for them. The few who do use it will survive and continue using Google despite claims to the contrary. I think what they've done with it is cool. Why keep a UI element in place that no one uses?
You couldn't even click the button anyway! As soon as you start typing, Google Instant kicks in and takes you to search results. So there is no use case for the button anymore.
Well, of course there's going to be a backlash. Pretty much the only people who are even likely to notice this are the people who do actually use the "I'm Feeling Lucky" button, and since Google presumably intends this to be noticed I'm guessing that any disruption those users experience is totally intentional. In fact, arguably they might be the main target of this.
Absolutely! I was reading the comments on the original post and saw a number of people upset by this change which is what prompted me to write my comment here. I assumed (maybe wrongly as of this writing) that a lot of people would be upset and there'd be a backlash like there usually is anytime anything changes ever. Looks like I was wrong in that assumption so far but still, you're right. I'm betting usage decreased to the point where the button was useless and instead of changing the classic Google homepage they just gave it an interesting new purpose. I love that idea.
I used it recently in a RSS feed I was making for events where I didn't have websites for the events. I made queries with the title, date and location and added &btnI to the end. It's not perfect, but pretty good.
http://www.google.com/search?q=Tall+Ships+Race+2012+-+Day+1+...
The feed for those interested/those in Dublin: http://feeds.feedburner.com/FreeDublinEventGuide
I had to roll back changes which added descriptions due to the timeouts when retrieving the data. I'll improve it eventually.