GKT - People really search like this?

[springer]

Doing some keyword research on GKT and stumbled upon these exacts:

[www.national-lottery.co.uk results] 33,100
[www.lottery.co.uk results] 5,400
[national-lottery.co.uk results] 2,900
[www.national-lottery.co.uk millionaire raffle results] 2,400

Surely people don't search like this? What would otherwise cause this data?

You get similar results with other domains such as:

[bbc.co.uk cbeebies games]
[bbc.co.uk sport football]

 

[Aaron Clifford]

Probably old people using google as address bar.

 

[grantw]

I've found myself searching like that recently when I've been looking for something very specific, after a quick look around I may do 'product name amazon.co.uk' to see if amazon stock it. As I'm already on google it's quicker than navigating to amazon and then searching.

Grant

 

[peter_w]

I search like this all time. Well - I don't consider it searching... it's just cause I use firefox and it automatically delivers the I'm Feeling Lucky result.

So typing in something like "www.national-lottery.co.uk millionaire raffle results" into the address bar is a lot easier than faffing on trying to find it on the site it's self.

My missus often types addresses into the actual Google Search box on the right of Firefox as well. Presumably a lot of people do this as well.

 

[retired_member34]

Probably old people using google as address bar.

My son and daughter, 18 and 17, do this all the time. If they want to go to a homepage, they just type in the name to Google without the www or the tld. If they want a particular part of a site they type in the address and the name of the page they are looking for to Google. Both ways it's normally quicker for them.

Scary but true.

 

[Aaron Clifford]

I'm guilty of typing in "google" in the search box on firefox to get to the page, then actually doing my search, I like typing on google for some reason.

 

[mat]

People do it so their friends and family can't see their history of porn drop down as they start typing in the url. That's why lol!

 

[Edwin]

I quite often use Google plus a site reference to dig straight to a specific page...

 

[Edwin]

One word: offline

More specifically: advertising anywhere and everywhere that's away from a web browser: on TV or the radio, in newspapers and magazines, on fleet livery, on bus shelters, on invoices and packing slips, on product packaging and wrapping, on flyers and handouts, at tradeshows, etc. etc. etc. etc.

In EVERY SINGLE CASE above, a simple, no-brainer, easy to remember, on-target generic domain name will benefit the company in question since it will slash their ad costs while improving their credibility.

So long as advertising continues to take place off-web (which will still be the case well after we're all dead and gone) domain names will have their place.

 

[QualityNonsense]

Interesting explanation of that search traffic. See if it in my referrer logs, but couldn't work our what was up. Toolbar searches makes perfect sense.

 

[foz]

Folk are still looking at domain names in those Google results.

If it weren't for domain names, Google wouldn't have much of search product.

 

[Blossom]

Guess it says a lot about the usability of websites...or perhaps the laziness of users!

 

[peacock]

I've done adwords campaigns for some big brands, and from that I have seen it is amazing but yes there is a lot of people searching like this.

A lot of people have Google as their homepage so they are perhaps drawn to the Google search box instead of the address bar of their browser.

Haven't seen the data coming into the keyword tool before though.