[josefresco]

I wonder that the numbers look like now. I could see someone searching "MSN" for "Google" because MSN was set to their home page, or the default search. I wonder if those practices are still widespread enough to create this same effect.

Given that Chrome is the new IE, I wonder how long (or ever) until they see competitors' brands in their popular search terms.

[segfaultbuserr]

Don't underestimate the technical illiteracy here. A significant number of people don't really understand how the address bar or an URL works in a web browser. Use web searching as a substitute of typing an URL is common, and some can't distinguish the "search" function of an address bar and the "enter an URL" function of an address bar. Searching "Google" in the address bar to access Google in Google Chrome is not unusual (sometimes you'll get a search result of 'Google' at Google, sometimes you'll be autocompleted and get a Google homepage, users don't notice the difference). This is also the underlying basis of Google's idea of abolishing the address bar - some users don't understand it, a Walled Garden is "better".

I'm not saying that I support Google's idea, just to point out a phenomenon that exists.

[carstenhag]

Back when I was in high school (~5 years, not even that much), Firefox still had separate URL and search input fields. Of course the teachers used Chrome at home and were confused on why they couldn't search on the URL field.

[segfaultbuserr]

Similar experience here.