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> literally everyone who'd want to visit Facebook knows Facebook's URL I'm not sure I'd agree with this. I don't think most people look at or really understand
by danpalmer 7y ago
> literally everyone who'd want to visit Facebook knows Facebook's URL
I'm not sure I'd agree with this. I don't think most people look at or really understand URLs or domain names. I think people assume they are a lot "fuzzier" than they are, so "facebookapp.com" or "facebook.foobar.com" or anything else would be assumed to be "Facebook" by most people.
As technical people it's easy for us to assume things that feel basic to us are at least understood but I don't think it's the case. My parents do most of their shopping online, and when I was growing up we always had computers around, but I don't think either one of them really understands URLs or things like file hierarchies, or windowing systems on desktops for example.
- cwyers 7y agoI have seen multiple people, mostly elderly, who will go to whatever search engine that loads by default in their browser, search for Facebook, and click on the link. Nothing close to everybody has Facebook's URL memorized.
- danpalmer 7y agoNot everyone knows what a URL is, or understands the difference between a search box and a URL text box.
- chias 7y agoI remember a few years ago when someone wrote a blog post about Facebook that somehow ranked higher than Facebook itself in Google search results for "facebook login", and was innundated by people who thought they were on facebook and left angry comments about how the redesign was terrible and they couldn't figure out how to log in. A very non-trivial amount of people type "facebook" into Google and then click the first result. Edit: found it! Scroll to the bottom for the comments. https://web.archive.org/web/20100213061037/https://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/facebook_wants_to_be_your_one_true_login.php https://web.archive.org/web/20100213061037/https://www.readw...