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An interesting side effect of this is the phenomenon of less sophisticated users who use Google as their address bar. If you run a decently well-known website y
by jonknee 13y ago
An interesting side effect of this is the phenomenon of less sophisticated users who use Google as their address bar. If you run a decently well-known website you see this in your analytics reports (at least back when you could see Google search keywords)--repeat visitors coming to your site from Google after searching for your site by name. This is why "facebook" is the top Google search.
Since you can't find RapGenius by searching for it there is a decent sized audience of people who are under the assumption that RapGenius does not exist anymore. It's bizarre to the HN crowd, but very real. Check out their twitter feed:
https://twitter.com/RapGenius https://twitter.com/RapGenius
- Kerrick 13y agoSpecifically, https://twitter.com/RapGenius/status/417354178189459456 https://twitter.com/RapGenius/status/417354178189459456
- jonknee 13y agoAmong others: https://twitter.com/RapGenius/status/417348237222113281 https://twitter.com/RapGenius/status/417348237222113281
- thedrbrian 13y agoIt happened slightly differently to Facebook http://readwrite.com/2010/02/11/how_google_failed_internet_meme http://readwrite.com/2010/02/11/how_google_failed_internet_m...
- jameszhang 13y agoMy browser (Chrome) shares screen real estate between its search functionality and address bar. Therefore, if I have searched "facebook" on Google but have not explicitly typed "http://facebook.com" http://facebook.com" into the address bar, Chrome remembers the "facebook" search as I start to type it out. As a user, the next most obvious action to take is to tab-complete + enter, and voila, there goes the Google search for "facebook".
- nawitus 13y agoWhen I tab-complete + enter, Firefox autocompletes it to http://www.facebook.com http://www.facebook.com and then opens the URL.
- jameszhang 13y agoHave you explicitly entered http://www.facebook.com http://www.facebook.com into the address bar in the past by any chance?
- ddw 13y agoI consider myself sophisticated and I still use Google for something like Rap Genius: "rap genius kendrick lamar swimming pools" would get me there quicker than any other way. It's incredible that now that search string sends me to other pages that link to RG's lyrics but not directly to theirs.
- aliakbarkhan 13y agoIf you actually knew how to use Google this wouldn't be a problem. The `site:` filter is your friend.
- graeme 13y agoHow is that faster? You're adding five characters + the .com , and will get exactly the same result.
- redthrowaway 13y agoOr just set up a custom search engine in Chrome, eg: chrome://settings/searchEngines search engine: rapgenius.com keyword: rg url: http://rapgenius.com/search?q=%s http://rapgenius.com/search?q=%s Then just type rg<tab> in the omnibox and search for whatever you want, and get taken to rg's serp.
- Zarel 13y agoFor most sites, Chrome should do this by default and the default keyword is just the site's URL. So simply: rapgenius.com<tab>search terms autocomplete is supported so you can also just do ra<tab>search terms if rapgenius.com is your first autocomplete result for "ra"
- redthrowaway 13y agoThis feels like a bit of a regression. I used to be able to just use the automatic search, but it seems to be breaking for more and more sites recently. Even sites it used to pick up automatically, like tpb, now need to be manually specified. And there's still no damned excuse for them not being able to search maps.google.com from the omnibox.
- ZoFreX 13y agoThis is a ridiculous practical weakness to the web we have created. At a technical level it is designed to be relatively decentralised and fault tolerant, but what we have built on top is anything but :(
- sprobertson 13y agoIs it really the web's weakness? Seems like user error to me.