Google Says More Searches Now on Mobile Than on Desktop • Hacker News Board

Re: Google Says More Searches Now on Mobile Than on Desktop

#21

Post by [deleted] » Wed, May 06, 2015, 2:09 PM UTC

sanoli wrote: post #12

baldfat wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My wife uses speech input almost exclusively. She says that it is the most accurate way to text due to auto correct and simple typing errors that than need to be corrected or send a second corrected text. She hates most technology and just likes her old and tried ways and it has shocked me how much she picked up voice search and texting.

what phone does she have? I gave up on voice recognition a decade ago because I realized the thing has to work as good as an average person's ear/understanding capacity or it just stinks to use. So I said, I'll give it a decade or more. I still thought it was not there, since I never see people use Siri. Maybe I'm wrong?

[deleted]

Re: Google Says More Searches Now on Mobile Than on Desktop

#22

Post by Shorel » Wed, May 06, 2015, 2:47 PM UTC

I changed my desktop search engine to Bing.

I use a proxy, I'm the only user of that particular IP, and I get constant nagging about too many searches from my network in google search. Good riddance.

Re: Google Says More Searches Now on Mobile Than on Desktop

#23

Post by kazazes » Wed, May 06, 2015, 2:51 PM UTC

Shorel wrote: post #22

I changed my desktop search engine to Bing. I use a proxy, I'm the only user of that particular IP, and I get constant nagging about too many searches from my network in google search. Good riddance.

It may seem obvious, but check the proxy's logs. Perhaps you're not the only one connecting.

Re: Google Says More Searches Now on Mobile Than on Desktop

#24

Post by smrtinsert » Wed, May 06, 2015, 2:58 PM UTC

psbp wrote: post #6

kybernetyk wrote: post #5

That's probably me repeatedly trying Google's speech recognition search before giving up and going to type in the search phrase :)

Is this a recent experience? I've found the voice search to be incredibly proficient recently. It's slightly embarrassing, but I use it for search and text dictation almost constantly.

It has become my main source of search entry to be honest.

Re: Google Says More Searches Now on Mobile Than on Desktop

#25

Post by Shorel » Wed, May 06, 2015, 3:06 PM UTC

kazazes wrote: post #23

Shorel wrote: post #22

I changed my desktop search engine to Bing. I use a proxy, I'm the only user of that particular IP, and I get constant nagging about too many searches from my network in google search. Good riddance.

It may seem obvious, but check the proxy's logs. Perhaps you're not the only one connecting.

Just in case, I did the check.

Nope, the proxy only accepts connections from localhost, and no one has my ssh private key.

But there are some failed connection attempts from one particular IP from China.

Re: Google Says More Searches Now on Mobile Than on Desktop

#26

Post by josephmx » Wed, May 06, 2015, 3:06 PM UTC

_delirium wrote: post #20

profinger wrote: post #17

Maybe someone should tell the idiots that design most of the horrible mobile sites to stop forwarding link clicks from search results to the main page. Mobile sites are garbage 90% of the time anyway...

Google claims that they now penalize these sites on mobile: http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2013/06/changes-i...

As of mid 2013 according to that blog, but I still bump into this from time to time

Re: Google Says More Searches Now on Mobile Than on Desktop

#27

Post by known » Wed, May 06, 2015, 3:11 PM UTC

ToastyMallows wrote: post #19

psykovsky wrote: post #3

That is not surprising at all. Most of people who use the Internet on mobile don't even now what a browser is, much less a domain name. They search every site they want to visit, even if they just needed to add .com to their search term to open the site straight away in the browser. The "Internet" is the google search box.

God is this true. My girlfriend just types 'facebook' into the URL bar, then clicks on Facebook.com. I don't understand it.

http://jokes.christiansunite.com/Men_vs._Women/At_the_ATM_Ma...

Re: Google Says More Searches Now on Mobile Than on Desktop

#28

Post by bhartzer » Wed, May 06, 2015, 3:29 PM UTC

Shorel wrote: post #22

I changed my desktop search engine to Bing. I use a proxy, I'm the only user of that particular IP, and I get constant nagging about too many searches from my network in google search. Good riddance.

I changed my desktop search engine to Bing because of the rewards I get. It's a great incentive to use Bing. (j/k)

Re: Google Says More Searches Now on Mobile Than on Desktop

#29

Post by mkarazin » Wed, May 06, 2015, 3:31 PM UTC

psykovsky wrote: post #3

That is not surprising at all. Most of people who use the Internet on mobile don't even now what a browser is, much less a domain name. They search every site they want to visit, even if they just needed to add .com to their search term to open the site straight away in the browser. The "Internet" is the google search box.

How does this affect advertisements and click rates? Often times I am presented with two results which are correct - one promoted (ad) and one search result. If I click the promoted one I am contributing to the advertisement's click through metrics. If more people are using google as their navigation aid, is the ad value still as important? Could facebook or other top services be paying $$$ in advertisement fees simply because people don't want to add ".com" to their query?

Re: Google Says More Searches Now on Mobile Than on Desktop

#30

Post by WorldWideWayne » Wed, May 06, 2015, 3:44 PM UTC

mrweasel wrote: post #15

psykovsky wrote: post #3

That is not surprising at all. Most of people who use the Internet on mobile don't even now what a browser is, much less a domain name. They search every site they want to visit, even if they just needed to add .com to their search term to open the site straight away in the browser. The "Internet" is the google search box.

It could also be because the interface on mobile is significantly worse than on a desktop. Just doing a search, by typing into the already active text box, is easier than trying to navigate to the URL bar, hitting the wrong keys and getting the URL wrong. It's easier to just do a search and let Google work it out. Honestly I'm surprised how many how almost exclusively use their phone to go online. It's seems like a h…

My wife is one of those people and one day I asked her why she goes for her phone instead of her tablet when she wants to look something up. It's because she is already on her phone most of the time, because after work she spends hours messaging with her friends. (I can't even sit near her when she's doing this because she doesn't turn off the buzzer and it's super annoying to be around.) She spends many, many hours looking at that little screen.

Personally, the less I have to interact with my limited phone, the better. I use it mainly for 4 things: calls, sms, maps and music. Once in a while, I use it to read the news when I'm not near an actual computer (or tablet). Occasionally, I use specialized apps like Amazon AWS Virtual MFA. Other than that, I just can't stand to use it for anything.