[alsetmusic]

> I'll wager that the average not-technical user who ventures to Google doesn't understand 1) what exactly a search engine is 2) alternatives exist.

I have seen my father type a web address into a google search page because he doesn’t understand that he can use the location field to go directly to that address. I corrected this behavior the first time I saw it. He was doing it again the next time I visited.

This is a man with a high level of education and a healthy mind. He’s utterly lost on many of the basic concepts of his computer. The thing is, it works for him and I would never know he was making this mistake without watching him because he still gets the desired result in a roundabout way.

[skybrian]

I'm not sure it's a mistake. Doing a search seems better for non-technical users since you get spelling correction, and you're more likely to get a decent result if you mis-remember the domain name.

[ocdtrekkie]

It's not better. Because often the top result is a paid ad for that result. This is bad for a couple reasons:

- It's a tax on the services you use who have to pay to be the top result, you burden companies you patronize when you do this. When you search for Dell.com in search and click the top link for Dell, Dell just had to pay a couple quarters to not have you redirected to a seedy scam site instead. Times millions for every other person who does this.

- Google Ads allow advertisers to spoof addresses, and display a different destination address than where clicking the link actually takes you. I've seen amazon.com, bestbuy.com, and even, hilariously, youtube.com hijacked in very authentic-looking malicious Google Ads at the top of Google Search. For security reasons, you should never, ever click on a Google Ad.

[skybrian]

This seems like a good argument in favor of understanding the difference between ads and search results. (Unfortunately it's more subtle than it should be.) Or maybe installing an ad blocker.

[dmitrygr]

Ad? You'd let your father browse the web without an ad blocker?!?