Are Domain Names Not Intuitive Enough Already?

This is fascinating to me. Google has a tool in beta that allows you to see the top searches in the world (or by region) as well as which searches are gaining in popularity.

A few days ago I looked at the top 10 rising searches in the last 7 days? Eight of them are domain names:
1.       cnn          +50%
2.       you          +20%
3.       hi5           +20%
4.       google      +20%
5.       games      +20%
6.       firefox       +20%
7.       youtube    +10%
8.       you tube   +10%
9.       wikipedia  +10%
10.     orkut        +10%

Why would you go to www.google.com and then type in "google?" Why google "firefox" or "wikipedia" instead of just typing in "wikipedia" into your address bar?

I don't know what "you" is supposed to be. When I googled it, the sponsored result is YouTube. There's also a South African magazine called You. What caused the search term "you" to go up 20% in the last 7 days?

You can also search by region, so the top 10 news and current events search terms in the United States from the last 7 days are:

1.     news        
2.     msnbc    
3.     new york times    
4.     nbc    
5.     wall street journal    
6.     cnn    
7.     washington post        
8.     usa today        
9.     ny times        
10.     fox news

Again, all domain names that shouldn't need to be googled, except for the first one.

The top 10 searches in Michigan are:

1.     news    
2.     free press        
3.     detroit news        
4.     msnbc        
5.     free press detroit        
6.     freep        
7.     new york times        
8.     nbc        
9.     cnn        
10.     wall street journal

Whereas the too 10 searches from California are:

1.     news    
2.     msnbc    
3.     clarin    
4.     new york times    
5.     nbc    
6.     wall street journal    
7.     ole    
8.     noticias    
9.     la times    
10.     cnn    

What's interesting about the California list is that one (possibly two, I guess) of the top 10 search terms is in Spanish, which gives you a sense of just how many Spanish speakers there are in California.

I don't know what you actually DO with this tool other than play around with it. But it is interesting. I would have expected your average internet user to be savvy enough to type in msnbc.com instead of needing to do a google search for "msnbc." But I guess not.

Comments

[wow]

very good...