'Google' is most searched word on Bing • Hacker News Board

Re: 'Google' is most searched word on Bing

#21

Post by josefx » Fri, Oct 01, 2021, 8:25 AM UTC

robbedpeter wrote: post #18

blunte wrote: post #2

People go to the name they know. Since for many (most?) people, the word “google” is a verb meaning to search the web, they naturally will prefer that service even if they don’t know why it might be better than whatever is the default. Meanwhile, it reminds me that we developers don’t understand users or don’t provide understandable interfaces for them. Observe many people and you’ll see a maddening pattern of browse…

They don't know what a url is, and to them the address bar is the search box, and the search box is the address bar. Developers of all the major browsers made the two elements work interchangeably. A power user can create a web navigation system with plug-ins and customizations that rival a space shuttle for complexity and sophistication. The novice user, and users that are tech challenged can get stuck on the most b…

> Developers of all the major browsers made the two elements work interchangeably.

You can still disable that in firefox, but it is so badly tested that it somehow breaks the search field on its default home screen.

Re: 'Google' is most searched word on Bing

#22

Post by Kaibeezy » Fri, Oct 01, 2021, 8:25 AM UTC

robbedpeter wrote: post #18

blunte wrote: post #2

People go to the name they know. Since for many (most?) people, the word “google” is a verb meaning to search the web, they naturally will prefer that service even if they don’t know why it might be better than whatever is the default. Meanwhile, it reminds me that we developers don’t understand users or don’t provide understandable interfaces for them. Observe many people and you’ll see a maddening pattern of browse…

They don't know what a url is, and to them the address bar is the search box, and the search box is the address bar. Developers of all the major browsers made the two elements work interchangeably. A power user can create a web navigation system with plug-ins and customizations that rival a space shuttle for complexity and sophistication. The novice user, and users that are tech challenged can get stuck on the most b…

“Artificial incompetence”

Good one. I’ll be using it. Thanks for that.

Re: 'Google' is most searched word on Bing

#23

Post by ed_elliott_asc » Fri, Oct 01, 2021, 8:26 AM UTC

Part of the problem Microsoft have is that they just set the default to bing, people open it and don’t know what it is so search google.

These same people don’t know how to change their default search so keep searching for google.

If they wanted these people to stay they should get rid of their background image and just give a search box like google does - basically trick people into staying.

Re: 'Google' is most searched word on Bing

#24

Post by vbezhenar » Fri, Oct 01, 2021, 8:26 AM UTC

blunte wrote: post #2

People go to the name they know. Since for many (most?) people, the word “google” is a verb meaning to search the web, they naturally will prefer that service even if they don’t know why it might be better than whatever is the default. Meanwhile, it reminds me that we developers don’t understand users or don’t provide understandable interfaces for them. Observe many people and you’ll see a maddening pattern of browse…

If I'm not using bookmark, I'm using the same approach. Because of simple reason: If I would make a typo, Google will correct it and I will not land in a some faecbook.com.

Re: 'Google' is most searched word on Bing

#25

Post by Jaruzel » Fri, Oct 01, 2021, 8:34 AM UTC

xaxaxb wrote: post #10

[flagged]

Excuse me?! It is disingenuous to infer that a complete demographic doesn't know about how the Internet works.

For some late-age Boomers, I would agree that a large percentage of them would do this, but Gen-Xers are in their 40s and 50s, and most of them have literally grown up surrounded by technology.

Re: 'Google' is most searched word on Bing

#26

Post by blunte » Fri, Oct 01, 2021, 8:41 AM UTC

robbedpeter wrote: post #18

blunte wrote: post #2

People go to the name they know. Since for many (most?) people, the word “google” is a verb meaning to search the web, they naturally will prefer that service even if they don’t know why it might be better than whatever is the default. Meanwhile, it reminds me that we developers don’t understand users or don’t provide understandable interfaces for them. Observe many people and you’ll see a maddening pattern of browse…

They don't know what a url is, and to them the address bar is the search box, and the search box is the address bar. Developers of all the major browsers made the two elements work interchangeably. A power user can create a web navigation system with plug-ins and customizations that rival a space shuttle for complexity and sophistication. The novice user, and users that are tech challenged can get stuck on the most b…

> the address bar is the search box

I'm talking about people using the address bar just enough to get to google. Once they're looking at the text field where you're invited to enter your search terms, there they type in "www.whatever.com".

Re: 'Google' is most searched word on Bing

#27

Post by blunte » Fri, Oct 01, 2021, 8:47 AM UTC

egeozcan wrote: post #17

politelemon wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Observe many people and you’ll see a maddening pattern of browser use: they will use any available method to get to google, and then they will put a url into the google search text box. Perhaps the address bar is inconveniently too high on the screen, or maybe they just don’t know what a url is. I would have been dismissive of this a few years ago, but I would have been wrong. I have seen many people including deve…

> "thank you but not interested in this micro efficiency" smile I've seen a friend press caps lock, type a letter and press caps again to type capital letters. That's the smile I got when I introduced them the shift key. Also the smile my niece had when the car mechanic was explaining to him how he could spare some gas money by up-shifting early. Also the smile I had when my wife was giving me tips on how to plan mee…

When we follow the good suggestion, we don't suck at all. That's how humans should work.

It's when we reject the wise advice because... because we're stubborn?... that is when it sucks.

The thing about this url search is that they type the full url, sometimes even with the "http" bit (rarely https, but I digress), into the search field. then they get the results page a second or two later, and then _maybe_ they click the correct result if they didn't get mislead by some crappy SEO magic.

That's a lot of extra work just to get to hopefully arrive at the same page they would have arrived at had they typed that url into the address field.

Re: 'Google' is most searched word on Bing

#28

Post by qalmakka » Fri, Oct 01, 2021, 8:53 AM UTC

To be fair, Bing search is pretty much at a level comparable to google in the early '10s in my experience, so I understand why people are not thrilled by it. It's _fine_, but it's definitely not up to par with Google, not even close.

Re: 'Google' is most searched word on Bing

#29

Post by mattowen_uk » Fri, Oct 01, 2021, 8:56 AM UTC

ed_elliott_asc wrote: post #23

Part of the problem Microsoft have is that they just set the default to bing, people open it and don’t know what it is so search google. These same people don’t know how to change their default search so keep searching for google. If they wanted these people to stay they should get rid of their background image and just give a search box like google does - basically trick people into staying.

Something I've noticed with my work machine. The homepage in Edge is some mangled mash up of Bing News tiles and my works' SharePoint activity, and is just branded 'Microsoft'. Non technical people stuck with this homepage are very likely to just type 'Google' into it to "get them out onto the Internet".

Re: 'Google' is most searched word on Bing

#30

Post by rob74 » Fri, Oct 01, 2021, 9:00 AM UTC

ed_elliott_asc wrote: post #23

Part of the problem Microsoft have is that they just set the default to bing, people open it and don’t know what it is so search google. These same people don’t know how to change their default search so keep searching for google. If they wanted these people to stay they should get rid of their background image and just give a search box like google does - basically trick people into staying.

It's not like Microsoft hasn't been trying to make Bing look like Google Search for years (see this 7 year old article: https://betanews.com/2014/10/14/is-microsoft-trying-to-confu...) - but they have apparently concentrated on copying the format and styling of the results pages, the actual search page which the user first sees is still markedly different. But the "Bing wallpapers" are their USP ("Experience beauty every day - make Bing your homepage"), so they're not willing to give them up...