• by February 14, 2001

With the topic of using search engine listings as ad vehicles still fresh in my mind, I just couldn't resist telling you about another research report I stumbled on today.

This one is a two-year study by Alexa Research, which has just revealed that instead of entering a URL into the address field of their Web browsers, a huge number of Internet users enter the name of the site they want into the search box of their start-up homepage or other search engine.

Alexa's findings are based on an examination of more than 42 million search pages viewed in aggregate by users of the Alexa toolbar at 10 of the Internet's leading portals and search engines -- altavista.com, aol.com, excite.com, go.com, google.com, goto.com, lycos.com, msn.com, netscape.com, and yahoo.com -- between March 1999 and January 2001.

According to the data, for many Internet users there's a conceptual misunderstanding of how to effectively navigate the Web. Matthew Work, VP of Alexa Research, said "Some people think that their homepage is the Web, that they have to go through their homepage in order to get to the site they want, without realizing that any website can be accessed directly. This notion is supported by our Web traffic popularity rankings, where eight of the top 10 sites are portals and/or search engines."

The above coupled with yesterday's report suggesting that search engine and directory results were a more effective branding and sales tool than banners, makes for some interesting data.

Incidentally, the study also found that the most popular term people search for online is "sex." Hotmail was the second most popular term sought, and Yahoo was third.