Do Good Search Engines make Domain Names less relevant?

[Nexus]

Well, here's a thought... I have the Google toolbar installed in Internet explorer ( http://toolbar.google.com/ ). If I were to completely TURN OFF the normal URL ADDRESS toolbar on Internet Explorer (easily done through right-clicking on the toolbar, and unchecking it), and just use my Google bar instead how "bad" or "good" is that?

A little TRICK for people to try:
If you type http://www.yaddayadda.com into the Google toolbar, and it will browse to that URL. Ok, here's an even better trick. You can hold down your ALT key on your keyboard and either CLICK "Search Web" or hit ENTER (while holding ALT down) and browse the web using JUST keywords.

"DNF" + Alt + Enter --> www.DNF

I didn't actually GO to a cumbersome search engine webpage (with gaggles of results) at all, yet here I am. Were I unsure, I'd have glady gone to the list of results though... it is another one click away (or even a button press). What's more, if the keywords plant me on a subdirectory of a website, I can use Google's "up level" button to go to the "next level up" inside the website. Next to the "Search Web" button is the "Search Site" button, so suddenly, I'm searching DNF with barely an effort.

More examples:
"Yahoo" + Alt + Enter --> www.yahoo.com
"MSN" + Alt + Enter --> www.msn.com
"Cartoon Network" + Alt + Enter --> www.cartoonnetwork.com
"Lion King" + Alt + Enter --> www.lionking.org (great site)
"young and the restless" + Alt + Enter --> www.cbs.com/daytime/yr/
"American Idol" + Alt + Enter --> www.idolonfox.com
"smoking gun" + Alt + Enter --> http://www.thesmokinggun.com
"the smoking gun" + Alt + Enter --> www.thesmokinggun.com
"hasbro gi joe" + ALT + Enter = www.hasbro.com/gijoe/
"disney lion king" + ALT + Enter = disney.go.com/disneytheatrical/thelionking/
"sony spiderman" + ALT + Enter = www.spiderman.sonypictures.com/

Seems like a very easy, handy thing. Whats more... look at all the other thing this nifty magic box lets me do:

• Map: If you enter a street address, a link to Yahoo Maps and to MapBlast will be presented.
• Calculator: Enter an equation and Google will give you the answer
• Caller ID: Enter anything that looks like a phone number to have a name and address displayed. Same is true for something that looks like an address (include a name and zip code)
• Spell Checks: will spell check your query and search for it.
• Stock Quotes: will lookup the search query in a stock index.

Awefully convenient... I dunno...

"AMZN" + Alt + Enter --> http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=amzn
"MSFT" + Alt + Enter --> http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=msft
"52/12" + Enter --> 52 / 12 = 4.33333333

Is a GOOGLE powered web browser the next "big thing" to humanize the Internet browsing experience? Will domain names slowly lose the spotlight to "key words"? Some interesting questions.

Perhaps in the future, Google will even let us browse by voice...
SEE HERE: http://labs1.google.com/gvs.html

Or, you can try Google keywords "google voice search".

I feel the following represents the evolution of importance of these two technologies to business:

Domain Name Branding -->
> PAST: Low Priority
> RECENTLY: VITAL
> NOW: Very Important
> SOON: Important
> FUTURE: Somewhat Important
> DISTANT FUTURE: Low Priority

Search Engine Ranking/Optimization -->
> PAST: Low Priority/No Priority
> RECENTLY: Somewhat Important
> NOW: Very Important
> SOON: VITAL
> FUTURE: ESSENTIAL
> DISTANT FUTURE: DOMINANT PARADIGM

We've all marveled through Overture at the alarming amount of people who regularly type domain names into search engines to get to a website. I think that's a significant marker.

Microsoft took back control from Real Names, so that unqualified URL's shoot off to MSN's search engine. People who install the Yahoo toolbar have their unqualified URL text sent off to Yahoo's search engine. --There's a little war going on there.

AOL's popular and attractive capability for its partners is the assignment of an AOL keyword. "Go to AOL KEYWORD: Finance" it might say. I haven't checked, but I have a feeling that unqualified URL's in the AOL's client web browser might double for AOL Keywords as well.

I'm thinking that "unqualified" may become more and more stringent and require HTTP:// in front to browse the web, otherwise, you're actually getting search engine results.

I understand that today the general notion for netizens is that URL if ya got it, and SEARCH if ya don't. Just as Apple's IPOD vastly simplified my need to play digital music on the go... I think "simpler" is the more "human" and "popular" path in all things. So, I'm thinking out of the two options, there remains one option too many and that time will eventually bear that out.

I think pressure will increase on Search Engines over what shows up under certain keywords. I'm sure Google hears no end of it. On a serious note... especially when it comes to trademarks and such, I wonder if Google will begin selling this "I'm Feeling Lucky" to corporations (the instant browse feature)... allowing the "first result", to be determined by the sponsor of those AdWords (and true search result pages, simply delineating the difference between the paid ads and the true query results).

Hm. Simultaneously a nest of vipers and a potential cash cow.

What do you folks think? Insanity?

~ Nexus

 

[darksk8er]

I believe this trick is quite old, but nothing beats direct request when visiting websites that aren't that big or simply not listed on top of its keywords.

 

[NameCaster]

I thought they were already the paradigm?
Cheers!

 

[Nexus]

Originally posted by NameCaster
I thought they were already the paradigm?
Cheers!

Key word being the "dominant" paradigm, and "for browsing the web". Currently, they're the main way people "find" things, but there doesn't seem to be a collapse yet between how people simply find things, and how people browse the web. I guess that's the notion.

For instance... when getting to a website, are you likely to: a.) type in a URL, b.) type in keywords c.) Use a bookmark. The general idea.

~ Nexus

 

[Kodeking]

Don't you use CTRL + Enter, not Alt + enter......

 

[Nexus]

Originally posted by Kodeking
Don't you use CTRL + Enter, not Alt + enter......

That's for IE's address bar, not Google's toolbar. IE's will only place "www" before and ".com" after in a completely robotic, brain dead way though. Google's toolbar will send you to the first valid response with "Alt + Enter". I think its the "intelligence" that makes the difference.

Ironically, read this yesterday... (though much of what I posted above I wrote last week).

Do Domain Names Matter? Part I and Part II
Francis Hwang
Part I:
http://www.circleid.com/article/211_0_1_0_C/
Part II:
http://www.circleid.com/article/212_0_1_0_C/

Mere user customization is loosed upon the world

If the DNS is fading in importance, it won't be a surprise to everybody. Byfield, for one, wrote that "DNS's level of abstraction is sinking relative to its surroundings." A year later, in 1999, Jakob Nielsen predicted the same, and with pretty good timing to boot.

"It is likely that domain names only have 3-5 years left as a major way of finding sites on the Web. In the long term, it is not appropriate to require unique words to identify every single entity in the world. That's not how human language works."

Today, in 2003, this is what the future of the domain name looks like: For the major players, the system will remain more or less unchanged. There will always be a small cast of large organizations and companies who will have domain names with household recognition: ebay.com, fbi.gov, etc.

But for the rest of us, we can increasingly rely on the fact that software is allowing users to build their own naming systems around their desktops, and then sharing and cross-pollinating those systems within their social circle. If you use the OS X Address Book, you can browse through your Safari bookmarks to find the link to, say, David Johnson's website. Which David Johnson? The one you care about.

Its gotten to the point where this point of view clearly has something to it. That whole "skit" I'd give about asking a browser to "find matt" and having it use your own digital "perspective" (read: your address book, bookmark database, history, etc) to divine what you mean, seems like a powerful thing. Next comes practical application as the killer app.

Another good snippet:

As long as names are memorable, people don't mind that they're local and highly subjective. Techies are an exception, since they spend much of their time crafting language for machines, and as such are accustomed to treating language as a brittle, precise tool. But most people like their language loose and contextual, thank you very much, and the hierarchies of the DNS demanded a rigor that never seemed worth the trouble to them.

Too many "techies" thinking the world cares what we know... that's what we are...

DNS as a Search Engine: A Quantitative Evaluation
http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/people/edelman/DNS-as-search/

In the course of the Internet's growing popularity, many Internet users have come to use the domain name system (DNS) as a directory and search engine: When trying to reach the web site of a new or unknown company, users often request the web page at the address http://www.companyname.com, replacing "companyname" with a guess as to a site's likely domain name. However, this DNS-based method is imperfect in that users may fail to correctly guess or remember a given company's domain name, instead typically receiving errors or sites operated by other entities.

The research described below suggests that alternative search mechanisms, such as leading search engine Google, provide the content of interest with greater accuracy and reliability than does the DNS. This finding supports the claim offered by, among others, DNS software designer Paul Vixie, that DNS "is not a directory service and was never intended to be used as one." This finding also quantifies Dan Gillmor's "Google effect" whereby Google replaces DNS as the preferred mechanism of locating content online.

'Google effect' reduces need for many domains
http://www.bayarea.com/mld/siliconvalley/business/columnists/dan_gillmor/2531424.htm

Over the years, I've registered several Internet domain names -- online identifications that end in .com (or .org, or what have you) -- thinking I might someday want to use them for various projects. Last month, when my domain registrar notified me that it was time to renew one of them, I ignored the notice and let the name lapse.

Apparently, I wasn't the only domain registrant to make this kind of decision lately. An Internet research firm, Netcraft, reported that the number of Web sites shrank slightly in November, for only the second time in the past six years.

Analysts attributed this largely to a slowdown in domain-name speculation -- a direct outgrowth of the deflation of the dot-com bubble that helped spark people to register all kinds of domain names in the first place.

And importantly:

The one worrisome feature of the Google effect is the possibility of a new, too-powerful gatekeeper. Eric Schmidt, the company's chief executive, dismisses the notion.

``It's different than owning the namespace and deciding who gets it, which is what Network Solutions did,'' Schmidt says. ``It's a looser relationship.''

He's probably right. If Google stops producing good results, other search engines will step in. That's called competition, another Good Thing.

And lastly:

Here's an example. I was recently working on a column about Via Technologies, a Taiwan-based company that makes semiconductors for PCs and other devices, and wanted to visit Via's Web site to do some research. In the old days, I might have typed www.via.com into the Web address (URL) area of the browser, and I would have been taken to the site of a company selling software. Instead, I typed Via Technologies into Google (www.google.com), and wham, there was the correct site -- www.viatech.com -- a domain name that is not sufficiently obvious to guess the first time.

In general, I never try to guess anymore. I trust Google and several other excellent search engines, such as AllTheWeb (www.alltheweb.com) to save me the trouble. My Opera (www.opera.com) browser has a space in the menu bar where I can enter Google searches, too, so I don't have to go to Google's site first.

~ Nexus

 

[DSL]

Search engines and sites must work together.

 

[Coastalguy]

Wow! An interesting read.

ST

 

[DSL]

LOl Yes it is.