Why "Yahoo" Is The #1 Search Term On Google

An anonymous reader writes "Google Trends indicates that over the course of the past year the search term "Yahoo" became more popular than "sex", making it the #1 query on Google. Yahoo apparently faces a similar dilemma with roles reversed: When you search for "Google" on Yahoo, Yahoo thoughtfully displays a second search box as if to tell you, "Hey cutie, you have a search engine right in front of you!" A puzzling phenomenon? An strange aberration?"

Self fulfilling prophecy

If you write it it will come.

Hands up how many people went between google and yahoo trying these searches?

Re:Self fulfilling prophecy

Before the first result, is says "Search the Web with Yahoo!" and gives me a second search box. I'm using Firefox on Linux.

Re:Self fulfilling prophecy

Yahoo thoughtfully displays a second search box as if to tell you,

They don't actually say anything, that was just the summary author being facetious.

Re:Self fulfilling prophecy

I asked jeeves about altavista, and all I got was a box asking me what it's like to still be stuck in 1997

Re:Self fulfilling prophecy

But I didn't get any message from Yahoo saying I already have a search engine in front me.

Yahoo didn't call me a cutie either. =(

Re:Self fulfilling prophecy

Sure, I did it. But I also searched 'sex' on google, out of a bizarre desire not to take sides in that competition.

Re:Self fulfilling prophecy

Hands up how many people went between google and yahoo trying these searches?

Actually, I'm one of those people who does this, even before this article. I pretty much always use google, I have it on my 'address bar' as a quick link (Oddly, I rarely use my embedded web-browser search box). Often times, I'm looking for a Yahoo! service, which by habit, I use Google.

Cheers,
Fozzy

Re:Self fulfilling prophecy

(Oddly, I rarely use my embedded web-browser search box).

I actually use the embedded one exclusively, even though I have the google toolbar installed. Aside from regular searches, I'm often too lazy to open up a real calculator app for simple things, so I'll type in a calculation in that embedded search box and it pops up the "suggestion" which is the calc results without ever having to press the Enter key. For whatever reason, even though suggestions work, it does not display calc answers in the suggestion popup for the regular google toolbar.

Re:Self fulfilling prophecy

I know, I forgot :-(

I loose at slashdot, and am now -1 blond.

Re:Self fulfilling prophecy

If you were female, that'd be +1 blond

Re:Self fulfilling prophecy

Actually, it'd be +1 blonde and some might appreciate the misspelling of lose.
 

Sex

People is using "pr0n" to search for that stuff.
Thanks to slashdot, of course.

Why?

Ask Jeeves, maybe he knows?

Understanding Your Audience

The reason Google is successful, is that they understand the needs of their audience and they cater to them. Yahoo has never allowed anyone to correct their business model, which is why Google exists today.

Metrics for IE6

http://www.google.com/ [google.com]
IE6: 15,524k

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=testing [google.com]
IE6: 15,896k

http://www.yahoo.com/ [yahoo.com]
IE6: 29,492k

http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=testing&fr=yfp-t- 501&toggle=1&cop=mss&ei=UTF-8 [yahoo.com]
IE6: 25,848k

I don't want this to be a browser war, I want this to be an analysis of these search engines. In IE6, Yahoo fares even worse. The ratio ranges from 1:2 on the homepage to 3:5 on a random search.

Re:Yahoo! Advertising

Considering that www.yahoo.com takes about 5,000k more memory than www.google.com in my Firefox browser, it's obvious to me which one I use by default.

You cant be serious, can you? Who the hell looks at their memory usage when browsing the web? If you do, you need to purchase more RAM, not limit your browsing options.

I Am Serious. Dead Serious.

You cant be serious, can you? Who the hell looks at their memory usage when browsing the web? If you do, you need to purchase more RAM, not limit your browsing options.

Well, it wasn't really my memory I was concerned with, it's a combination of that and my bandwidth. And memory, in addition to size, has a speed. The combination leads to your overall experience.

Since many people have been making fun of me for posting this, I'm going to go ahead and point out that soon one of the most common computers in the world will be the OLPC. Now, my parents are still stuck on a phone line so when I visit them I use Google. And I definitely see a difference. I suspect that the people using OLPCs will be using simply the search engine that is fastest for them. They will have low bandwidth & little, slow memory.

So, yeah, I think my initial argument was valid. Now, you might say that they don't want people with no money using their search engines (what ads will they click?) or that these people will probably speak Swahili or another non-English language, but I contend that having the traffic will reflect your market share. And in the end, the image as "the penultimate search engine" is the only thing that matters to these guys.

Re:I Am Serious. Dead Serious.

And in the end, the image as "the penultimate search engine" is the only thing that matters to these guys.

Wouldn't they rather be the ultimate search engine, rather than second best [reference.com]?

I agree with the rest of your post, though.

It's not funny.

Even if we all try that (I did), there's no way we could slashdot those pages.

Move along, nothing to crash there...

kill two birds

http://www.gahooyoogle.com/ [gahooyoogle.com]

homes of intimidated users

I would imagine it's because a HUGE population out there just doesn't understand or care what a "default page" is, how to change it, or that someone (or some kitty'n'virus download executable) left their computer with such a page as the default. They know they want to "look it up on the Googles" so they get to it by typing google in the "slot" or "address bar" that's right there in the middle of the screen every time they launch "the Internet."

Re:homes of intimidated users

You're right on the money. It makes me cringe everytime I see someone open up their browser (their default page being MSN), go to the search box on the page, and type in "google" or even type in www.whatever.com instead of going to the address box and just putting in the search engine. People don't understand or really care that one way is a better or worse way to navigate the webthan another, so long as their way works.

Re:homes of intimidated users

every once in a while if I can't remember the spelling of a URL I'll type it into google for the handy spell checking, since google usually does a good job of popping up what I meant- especially if it's a site I only visit rarely and I remember that the URL is spelled funny, but I don't remember in what way it's spelled funny. Better than giving another hit to sleezy people squatting on typo domain names.
I also agree that it's terrible that some people think that this is just the way to navigate "teh intarnets", rather than something that is done occasionally for a specific reason.

Re:homes of intimidated users

Am I really the only one having a fantasy about living in a cold (Not humid) and dark server room with only a 14" screen, an old Keytronic Cherry keyboard, unlimited supplies of coca-cola, insane bandwidth and hundreds of servers at my rootly disposal through ssh?

Yes.

Re:homes of intimidated users

No! Except in my fantasy, replace the 14" screen with a 42" plasma, the Coke with Yuengling or Sam Adams lager, and "hundreds of servers at my rootly disposal through ssh" with "hot chicks to serve my every whim". Otherwise, exactly the same. Oh yeah, and turn up the friggin' heat a little, will ya?

Re:homes of intimidated users

I've watched people use the internet. They really don't understand the address bar.

Re:homes of intimidated users

I would imagine it's because a HUGE population out there just doesn't understand or care what a "default page" is, how to change it, or that someone (or some kitty'n'virus download executable) left their computer with such a page as the default. They know they want to "look it up on the Googles" so they get to it by typing google in the "slot" or "address bar" that's right there in the middle of the screen every time they launch "the Internet."

Ding Ding Ding! We have a winner!

As a system administrator and local geek, I have hundreds of people who function exactly like this. You tell them to "Type it in the address bar", and they respond, "The what?" I've watched people use a search engine as if it were the address bar. I've even watched them type in the entire web address, http://www.google.com/ [google.com] into Yahoo!'s search field and click 'Search', then click the Google search result. Though I suppose now they'd just go back to Yahoo!'s search page again?

Of all the things we hate Microsoft for, naming their web browser "Internet Explorer" is on the top of my list. However! At least they label the address bar, where as Mozilla's Firefox is just a white box with a green arrow.

Puzzling?

Not at all. A lot of people don't know the difference between an address bar and a "search box." They type where they want to go into whatever is handy, and the browser (eventually) takes them there. I've seen more than one person start up their browser and type full URLs into search engines. Attempts to "correct" them are futile because what they are doing gets them what they want.

Re:Puzzling?

For the standard user the search box is more useful than the address bar because it has spell-checking. If you search for "www.slahsdot.org" you still get to the right page.

Not Weird

It makes sense to me. I do that sometimes.

Rather than type in "http:///www.yahoo.com", it can be simpler to type in "yahoo" into a google search text box, hit return, and click on the appropriate link from google's results.

Re:Not Weird

Why not just type yahoo in the address bar, and hit Ctrl+Enter? IE and Firefox both append http://www./ [www.] and .com to the beginning and end when you do a Ctrl+Enter on any word in the address bar. With Firefox, Ctrl+Shift+Enter will add .org instead of .com.

Re:Not Weird

What browser are you using? Because when I type 'yahoo' into my address bar in firefox, it goes and gets me www.yahoo.com without going through another page.

The interesting thing is what firefox does when you type 'yahoo' into the address bar. It (surprise, surprise) does a google search for 'yahoo' and takes you to the first result. Watch the status bar some time when you're typing a word into the address box sometime.

In fact, I wonder if that's one of the primary factors at work here. If there are lots of people doing that, then google will be getting huge numbers of hits for things like yahoo, even if people aren't going to the Google web page to search for it.

may not be looking for the search engine

Everyone seems to assume when looking at the search terms that people are being stupid and actually searching for a search engine. This is not always the case. For instance, while Google is getting better at this, they have not always been good at providing links to their various services. For the longest time, I knew of no way to get to a direct link to Google Analytics, thus if I was on a computer that I didn't have bookmarks, I would simply search for "google analytics" which gave me the results I needed. Both google and Yahoo are used for much more than as a search engine. Add to this that they are also both in the news a fair amount and people may want to find information about some news development. Don't be too quick to assume the reason for people making searches, particularly when you don't know the full search string that they used.

Is anyone else seeing an AOL similarity here?

Back in the days when there were not a whole slew of service providers available, AOL was one of the few with easy access and local dial-up numbers. (Am I dating myself yet?) And back in my AOL days before it became the bane of the Internet, the portal features allowed one to type in a "keyword" which would then take you to a web page that was associated with that keyword. However, you did not leave thier portal and never really hit the actual webpage because the portal seemed to cache the most popular sites to improve performance on slow dial-up (we're talking 14.4 modems, not even a 33.6). Now, in the present days of accessible broadband, many people are jumping to the fatser connections and being forced to abandon the AOL dial-up services they came to know, love and abuse.

Due to this phenomena, it seems that many people are inadvertantly using the search features of newer browsers to type in keywords and get the page they are looking for immediatly. The search engines are shooting themselves in the foot by adding the Google and Yahoo toolbars and making this ability accessible to users. What's worse is that with these toolbars in the browsers, even if the page is cached, unlike how AOL's portal used to operate, every time the ENTER button is pressed, it hits the search engine. Since computers have become more accessible to the general public and arguably more intuitive to use (even Windows) there are many people who know only a world like AOL. This limited knowledge leads to poor behavior on the actual Internet. Since more of these AOL'ers are tearing off the AOL portal training wheels, they are hitting the real Internet in droves and using bad habits propogated by AOL's effort to preserve a competative advantage in thier portal.

I know why

Apparently, many people still don't use the address bar to go to websites. They actually type addresses or the second-level domain name in the search engine that happens to be the default home page. My mother-in-law has a HP-Compaq laptop that had yahoo.com as her default home page. SO, if someone buys a computer where yahoo.com is default, but they prefer to use google, they simply type google in the search box to get to google.com. My mom does something similar. She doesn't remember URLs, she relies solely on the default home page search to navigate the internet.

I blows my mind that after all these years, people still do this.

I think I know

New users can't tell the difference between the URL box at the top of the browser and the search box at the top of search engine pages. At a previous web dev job we had a customer that did the same thing, that one was fun to troubleshoot.

Why is it surprising at all?

People have already commented on the fact that it's "mindblowing" to them that the average computer user can't differentiate between the address bar and a search box, not to mention that they don't remember or use URLs. I think that's a bit of an elitist, naive view of the overwhelming majority of internet users. Side-stepping the (woefully draining) topic of "why isn't Aunt Ruth more adept at computing?", people googling for yahoo is no different than dialing 411 to get an operator to look up a phone number and make a connection for you. Sometimes it makes sense.

Sometimes you're driving and can't safely get out the yellow pages (or yellowpages.com) to look up a number and call it.

Sometimes you're on a device with limited typing capabilities and can't be bothered to type "http://" with 9 keys.

Sometimes you don't know what "http://" even means, let alone are skilled enough at typing to quickly knock in "http://www.google.com" when "google" is already strenuous enough and all you wanted in the first place.

I know, it's 2007. People should learn and adapt. I get it. That's my gut reaction too, but then again, tell that to my grandma who has never driven a day in her life because back when she could've learned, it wasn't necessary or (apparently) proper for women to have a driver's license or a car. As weird as it seems in today's society, it hasn't stopped her from living a full life.

-Rylfaeth

Raymond Chen - aka theoldnewthing

A lot of people simply don't care to learn the difference between the search box and the address bar. "If I type what I want into this box here, I sometimes get a strange error message. But if I type it into that box there, then I get what I want. Therefore, I'll use that box there for everything." And you know what? It doesn't bother me that they don't care. In fact, I think it's good that they don't care. Computers should adapt to people, not the other way around.

http://blogs.msdn.com/oldnewthing/archive/2006/11/ 27/1160055.aspx [msdn.com]

Ob Simpsons reference

"Quick, give me the number for 9-1-1!"

Lost address bar

I recently helped an old couple who couldn't access the internet. They had somehow installed a toolbar that had hidden their address bar - meaning they couldn't directly type in a URL. The only way they could get to Yahoo was by searching for it in thier Google search bar. Maybe that's how come so many people search for Yahoo? I'm just speculating of course.

I reconfigured their Internet Explorer so they had their address bar back. Tomorrow I might teach them how to change their home page.

Another great trend analysis

Look at how low the volume is for search term slashdot. And how high it is for sex.

http://www.google.com/trends?q=slashdot%2C+sex&cta b=0&geo=all&date=all [google.com]

There is only one inescapable conclusion. Slashdot is very easy to find. So nobody is searching for it. Sex is very hard to find. So they keep searching for it. Right?

popularity

Readers are asked to note that whilst Yahoo! is now more popular than sex, it is neither better nor safer - the likelyhood of viral infection remains high with both pastimes and a personal firewall should be worn for the duration of any connection.

"A puzzling phenomenon? An strange aberration?"

Or perhaps something more sinister?

Cue old Outer Limits music.

The Network Effect

Scene 1.

A young William Shatner sits at a 1960s teletype terminal surrounded by tape drives and flashing lights.

Voice-over by Rob Serling: