Search as browsing replacement
I have noticed that almost everyone I work with, when browsing to a site that they know the name of, searches for a URL and then clicks the first link. For instance, rather than browsing to Amazon.com, they search for Amazon on Google, and then click the first link that comes up.
Question is, what percentage of Google’s daily search activity comes from “searches” like this? Those are (nearly) valueless impressions for advertisers who are in a CPM-based contract, but is this causing a sort of inflation for Google?
What happens to Google’s traffic as users (presumably) get smarter and use the URL bar to browse directly to the site they want? Granted, this will have little to no effect on Google, as they are well-leveraged, but it is interesting to think about.
Thoughts?
