NEWS+BLOG

An interesting observation has been noted over at franticindustries.com on the fact that many users are performing a Google web search instead of typing in a web address directly into their URL bar.

Classic examples of this are users searching in Google for:

"myspace" instead of myspace.com;
"ebay" instead of ebay.com.au and even
"google" instead of google.com

This is also something that I have noticed happening for one of our clients, Easy Way Tea.
Their website address is easywaytea.com.au however in the last week they have had over 300 visitors via Google for the keywords "easywaytea" (please note that the live site for Easyway Tea is an old site which we are currently in the process of re-developing).

The fact that people are using Google to search for google goes to show that users don’t think about Google as a specific web page, they think of it as the service, an essential part of the internet experience. They’re using this service to get to the page they want.

From my point of view this seems to boil down to trust. Users trust Google and as franticindustries.com notes:

It’s good news for Google, that’s for sure. When people think your service is an inseparable and essential part of the Internet, it’s hard for someone else to jump in. But it also means that domain names as static terms scattered across the Internet aren’t the primary way of distinguishing between different web sites any more. If people don’t use the address bar, they won’t go to the site with some exact domain name: they’ll go to the site Google deems most important for the term they’ve entered.

This means that ranking highly in Google's Organic Search Results becomes even more important as even if users do know your web address they are likely to try and find you in Google first, and if Google doesnt deem your site relevant you will loose that visitor!

 

For more brilliant observations visit Jessica Hagy's site "indexed"