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

dailydomainer.com — Google Trends indicates that the search term "Yahoo" is 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!"

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  • battletux, on 10/12/2007, -8/+1013 diggs and the sites dead for me...
  • LikuiD105, on 10/12/2007, -3/+6Great article
    It's a weird phenomenon indeed, I'm not sure why anybody would want to browse the web using a search engine instead of directly typing the domain name in his webbrowser !
    • NinjaBoy, on 10/12/2007, -8/+17I do all the time. When i start Firefox its where my courser is. I just start typing and see im in the wrong box right after I hit enter.
    • futzy99, on 10/12/2007, -15/+3@NinjaBoy

      I wouldn't have expected part of the problem to be on digg, a place for people who are generally good at using computers and the internet.
    • fugrank, on 10/12/2007, -11/+4Well, I personally use a search engine because I don't like getting the address bar cluttery, but I like leaving a few addresses in there, so clearing history is not the desired way to do it. Thus, I search even if I know the website. Also useful if you're on someone else's or a public computer and don't want to leave where you went in the address bar.
    • Homunculiheaded, on 10/12/2007, -2/+34It's funny, but there are so many things you just assume about how much people understand computers. I find that it's amazingly easy to get isolated in a world of people who have a solid understanding of computers in general. All the 'n00bs' on digg are light years ahead of the average computer user. I work in a pretty tech savy environment, and most of the people I know have a least a basic level of computer literacy, but in the every day world it isn't too hard to find someone that is, in most other senses a reasonably capable person, who doesn't know the difference between their browser and the page it displays.
    • jcounterman, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4Its just easier...when you open your browser, the curser is already in the search box. Know where you want to go? Type it in, hit tab twice (once for search, twice for "I'm Feeling Lucky"), and hit enter
      no hands must leave the keyboard...its like magic.

      Of course, if you are looking for a picture of Britney, this doesn't work, but myspace? yahoo? new york times?.. you'll always get there.
    • PhantomBantam, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2http://www.google.com/trends?q=free%2C+sex%2C+yahoo&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all They lie. I think it qualifies just as much as sex.
    • aaronm67, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3But I doubt "free" is used all that often as an individual search. Sure, you get people searching for 'free programs" and "free tips" and whatever else, but I doubt "free" is all that common.
    • sldSquirrel, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I was surprised to see a friend of mine type "Google" into MSN. I thought some kinds of things were just common knowlege.
    • PhantomJM, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5I'm a tech support rep for a popular Internet service provider. I've found that a lot of people don't even know how to use the address bar in IE. A lot of people learned how to use the Internet by using search engines and are completely unaware that the address bar even exists. Far too often I'll tell someone to type in an address and they'll type the full URL into Google. In fact, I've found that some IE plugins actually uncheck the address bar option entirely. This is often more of a lack of education issue than anything else. Either that or they're IE users who don't want to type www.whatever all the time (not so much with Firefox users)..
  • jackbauer007, on 10/12/2007, -6/+28yahoo was at one time powered by google as I recall
    • Reidtheweed01, on 10/12/2007, -9/+1I thought I was the only one who remembered that. I always tried to tell people you are going to get the exact same results on yahoo as google, but no one would listen.
    • understudy, on 10/12/2007, -11/+3My eyes like to look at yahoo more than google.

      _
  • Orien, on 10/12/2007, -7/+2Wow, it's already down.
  • albatross5000, on 10/12/2007, -1/+43Dugg for the "hey cutie" in the description.
    • purple, on 10/12/2007, -7/+1Hehe, the description is good.
    • abid786, on 10/12/2007, -4/+1@purple

      That's what Albatross was implying
    • marsrover21, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6I was going to post that same comment. I really like that part. I was like, "Hey, How'd they know I was cute?"
    • TenebrousX, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1by your unique avatar ;-)
  • krakkinem, on 10/12/2007, -0/+24Yahoo is more popular than sex. What is the world coming to...
  • tektalk, on 10/12/2007, -4/+7I tried it and it didn't work
  • NerveBand, on 10/12/2007, -13/+1http://www.duggmirror.com
  • slantyeyed, on 10/12/2007, -5/+3doesn't work for me either
  • nwhitehill, on 10/12/2007, -7/+0Dailey Domainer is a great site! You should all check it out!
  • Area51mafia, on 10/12/2007, -2/+32I say we all go to Google and try and get Sex back to the number one position!
    • CapeKid, on 10/12/2007, -13/+5That's what she said
    • Toon, on 10/12/2007, -0/+32Because I've heard that sex in the number two position can be very uncomfortable.
    • albatross5000, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1One can only speculate I suppose : P
  • th2edrrfs, on 10/12/2007, -18/+6WTF, when you search for "Google" on Yahoo! it does NOT say "Hey, cutie, you've got a search engine right in front of you"
    • Layzie, on 10/12/2007, -1/+10****as if to tell you,***
    • pjleonhardt, on 10/12/2007, -1/+10reading comprehension is your friend:

      "AS IF to tell you.."
    • radmarshallb, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I think (pray, hope?) that it was a joke.
    • TenebrousX, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1this is not something to say WTF over...
  • DaysInTheDark, on 10/12/2007, -5/+7I for one despise Yahoo, especially it's very malware-looking toolbar. Why don't all these people just use it or make Yahoo their homepage?

    Jesus *****.
  • xkrwlng, on 10/12/2007, -4/+2um, why would people search for "yahoo" in a google search? something smells fishy here
  • 1111, on 10/12/2007, -0/+27I was in a computer lab one time and I overheard someone explaining yahoo games to their friend. He said open open internet explorer, go to google.com, search for yahoo.com, click on that link, then click on yahoo games. I didn't say anything because I figured it might be too difficult to explain it to them.
  • eurleif, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3I call BS:

    http://www.google.com/trends?q=yahoo%2C+sex%2C+free&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all

    Yahoo and sex look to be nearly tied, but free is much higher than either of them.
  • COMCON4US, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10I am 99% sure these stats are from people typing either google or Yahoo into their address bar to save time not typing www and com, and their browsers default search client being the opposite service to the typed name :-)
    • kday, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I do that all the time., and yes, if you have google as your default search engine, google counts this as a search term. Due to modern web browsers such as Firefox, I strongly believe Google web trends is somewhat inaccurate.... especially when it comes to website names.

      I'm not sure why people are digging COMCON4US down. He has a valid point.
  • Rockmanneo12, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Omg, before coming across this article i found my sister googleing google so this caught my eye. Maybe this proves there is more computer illiterate people out there than perverts.
  • IndieChic, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0I heard it the other way, Google is the #1 search term on Yahoo! and MSN. Also that when you do a search for Google on Yahoo!, a search bar pops up that says 'search the web with Google.' The astonishment from me is what kind of idiot goes to Yahoo.com to search for Google and doesn't have the sense to just type Google.com. Perhaps it has to do with those annoying 'search the web' sites powered by inferior search engines that appear when inexperienced IE users mistype a desired web address.

    http://www.seomoz.org/blogdetail.php?ID=1073
  • Phillbo88, on 10/12/2007, -3/+4The digital age is a great time, but it brings out the retard in lots of people.
    • undersky, on 10/12/2007, -7/+2or maybe when u think u r smarter than those people you called "retards," it's just that except the cyber-world that you embrace all day from your computer you are a pathetic loser having no real social life?
    • thirtysixbelow, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1"The digital age is a great time, but it brings out the retard in lots of people."

      I'll remember that when your 50 and less adapt at new things than 20 year olds.
  • anomalya, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3i search for google on google 8D
  • jflvcr, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1When I type in yahoo as a search request in google, I'm getting an Ad to the right that says "Send money to India." Do you think this means anything?
  • broomett, on 10/12/2007, -6/+0How many times are people going to submit crap like this?

    This is just one guy GUESSING at why it is happening, and he is wrong. Trying to say that it is MOSTLY done by people using Google instead of their URL. No...it simply is not happening in any large numbers of people. A few idiots do it, but most do NOT.

    His second suggestion, that it is an accident is more plausible.
    • undersky, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3his point could be valid even if far more people type direct URL than searching via Google. he never said that MOST people use Google instead of direct URL. he is simply saying that there is a significant amount of people, and that amount is higher than any single search term.

      For example, let's say 1 billion people want to go to yahoo.com every day and the second highest search term is "sex" for 100 millions searches a day.
      Let's say if 20% of people who want to go to yahoo.com do not type the URL directly, they simply search "yahoo" on Google. Then you will still have 200 millions searches a day for "yahoo" on Google, more than the 100 millions for "sex." In this example you can see that, only 20% of the 1 billion people trying to reach yahoo.com choose this indirect method, yet it still validates his hypothesis. Your point is therefore refuted.

  • CLShortFuse, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Don't people know you can press Ctrl+Enter after the terms "yahoo" "ebay" or "google" when you're in the address bar and IE (i think firefox too) will append the "http://www." + ".com"
    Didn't know? Try it out.
  • invader, on 10/12/2007, -3/+3yahoo, sex, and google... hmmm....

    "quit googlin' yer yahoo!"

    yeah.. that's the best i could come up with...
  • gagan97, on 10/12/2007, -10/+1myself use sumtimes google to serach for site i mean last day only i wanted to get on to my bank's site.. and i knew one more thing that there is an same name fishing site.. so i was abut to search it in google becoz i trust google .. it will give me proper result not the fishing site.. becoz i knw they have a filter for fishing site and.. our very own FIrefox has that fishing alert..
    dont u think even its gud to search a site by google.. becoz u will come to knw its current status lyk is it hacked or affected by torjan's or not..its as simple as that to turst google or yahoo...
    • dyvbond, on 10/12/2007, -0/+13Dude..can you pleaseee, spell words out istead of saying 'lyk', 'becoz' and 'gud'

      please?
    • SteelFrog, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Man, that was a pain to read, and I don't see how that's really relevant to people searching Google for Yahoo.
    • Tredici, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2You should probably go ahead and never come back to Digg. Seriously, no offense is meant by this at all, but everyone of your comments will be completely disregarded or dugg down to oblivion.
  • Zivko, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1The word 'the' is much more popular than 'Yahoo'.

    http://www.google.com/trends?q=THE%2C+YAHOO&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all

    INACCURATE!

  • ben000, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2I've been in tech support for too many years and it never ceases to amaze me how many "*****" are out there. Stuff like searching for Yahoo at Google, and searching for exact URLs instead of simply typing them into the address bar, are pretty common. Ignorance is bliss I guess because ultimately it makes no difference, save a few seconds and maybe some extra hunting and pecking. They still get where they want to go. Most people who read the newspaper and drive don't understand too much about transmissions. Transmuh-who? Oh trannybroker.com, I love it, yeah just Google it. (WTF, what's wrong with me)
    • spickly, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2yea, i work in the web design business and have come across more than a handful of clients that type a url directly into google and get mad and confused when it's not coming up.
      "are you typing it into the address bar?"
      "yes i am"
      "the one at the top of the screen?"
      "no this one's in the middle"
  • GhostToon, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Whats even more disturbing is what happened at the end of 2005 and the beginning of 2006 http://www.google.com/trends?q=penis+envy&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all
  • stockjones, on 10/12/2007, -2/+0"I’ve noticed lately that many users have all but stopped typing domain names directly in the web browser, and started using Google instead. Instead of writing “myspace.com” as the address, they write “myspace” into Google."

    Jesus, This is some epiphany for techy analyists and industry experts? Shows you how much some of the best experts in the industry dont understand how regular users interact and use the UI within the browser or applications for that matter. No wonder the linux guys dont get it.
  • anizzle, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Just as I suspected...

    http://www.google.com/trends?q=jesus+christ%2Cdevil&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all
  • expatriot, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Man, ***** yahoo.
  • blamellors, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1sex with yahoo

    http://jairusotieno.blogspot.com
  • jenn527, on 10/12/2007, -2/+0"Far too often I'll tell someone to type in an address and they'll type the full URL into Google."

    ACK !!! this is so true and it drives me nutty !
  • darkdaven, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1I google yahoo all the time b/c it is faster then www.yahoo.com

    Only reason I go to yahoo is to occasionally check my freakin yahoo mail account that I can't seem to shake. Eventually I'll give up on its spamminess I suppose.
  • TargetBoy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0While not for yahoo, I do this for companies that have a longer domain than the company name. Easier to type the company name in and then click the link than to remember the specific domain name.
  • jvicinanza, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1I blogged about the death of the address bar last December. http://futurafish.com/blog/?p=60.

    I really do think that the real estate occupied by the address on the screen is wasted these days for the most part.
  • Miche1987, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2This probably has something to do with the fact that my mom replaces the Address Bar with Google search...
    • sockpuppets, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Your mom googles my yahoo sometimes.
  • C4RL, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1The act of entering known URLs in a search engine is evidence that many ignorant users actually think Yahoo (or Google) IS the internet.
  • robbiemuffin, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1lol! hillarious write up on the second search box :)
  • tfon, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Did anyone else notice that when you search for google using yahoo, the results are approximately 666,000,000 in number? Intentional or accurate?
  • jughead, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Part of the results might be from firefox users. If you type something into the address bar without "www" or ".com," firefox will google the term(s) and display the first hit, or a google search results page will be displayed. So if you just type yahoo into the url bar, you go to yahoo.com.
  • blamellors, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Love Yahoo more than sex? Nerds have taken over the world.


    http://jairusotieno.blogspot.com for all the sex your missing
  • blamellors, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1http://jairusotieno.blogspot.com
  •  

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