I think what we're seeing here is people no longer search for Facebook on Google; they have started going straight to Facebook, with no Google in between. For lots of folks, Facebook is the internet.
Exactly this. As hard as I try to be pro-privacy and anti facebook, it's on ever device I own and bookmarked into the very muscle memory of my hands. Where I used to log onto IRC to see what was happening after work, now it's FB instead.
I don't know about IE, but in Chrome you'd have to work at it to actually search for "facebook" rather than going to facebook.com.
Try it. Type "facebook". Heck, on most folks' machines you can just type "f". It'll auto-complete the URL. If you want to actually google for "facebook" you'll have to type "facebook " with a space.
I've seen many people type "google" or "google.com" into google's search bar, while on google.com. Then they typed "facebook.com" into the search bar or something silly like that ...
I don't know where I heard this, but I was told that its very common for inexperienced internet users (of which there are many) to search for google in the search bar built into their browser, then click google to search for there.
Using "facebook.com" as a search keyword yields a strange result: there is a steady rise until the first days of January 2010 when a sudden drop of ~50% occurs. From then on, the curve remains flat.
This probably has to do with the fact that 'facebook' is the same in every language. Meaning that other popular items that may receive higher search volume are split among many different actual queries.
The closest I could find to 'facebook' was 'youtube' which falls into the same category and comes in at just under half.
Doubtful. The last time I was privy to accurate data on the top search terms at a major search engine was almost five years ago, but at that time the most searched-for terms were all names of popular websites. Lots of people use search boxes as URL bars. With Facebook the most popular site in the world, it doesn't surprise me that it would be the top search query.
I think this is an important thing to consider when people compare the demise of Myspace with what Facebook will face in the future. Myspace was never even a fraction of what Facebook is today, Facebook has achieved "global brand" status because it came along at the perfect time, just as the internet was growing in popularity and becoming "accepted" as something to use Facebook was there, growing and providing something for internet-uninclined people to use, unlike Myspace which was arguably "ahead of the curve" and didn't cater to the average Facebook user. This graph is excellent evidence.
Could be a college student effect, like there used to be on Usenet. It could be that a not-insignificant percentage of Facebook activity is during class on laptops.
Im not sure that a graph showing the number of google searches for facebook indicates anything. When's the last time you googled facebook to log in to your account?
All the time. Well, not me personally, but many of the "normals" I know Google for Facebook rather than typing it in the URL bar. Remember the ReadWriteWeb "Facebook Login" event last February? [1] [2]
I'll bet at least some of the difference in facebook search traffic is offset by the rise in popularity of mobile devices. Most people with mobile devices have an app to go to and would be less likely to search 'facebook'.
Right. On the flip side, if this data is based as the other article a while ago, on facebook's advertiser's data, then it's not including mobile views.
You'll be surprised at how many non-hackers google for it. People even google for "ebay.com", and domain names rather than typing it in the browser URL bar.
And don't forget that Firefox sends address bar input that doesn't look like an URL to Google's I Feel Lucky search. That's why a significant part of the Mozilla Foundation's income comes from Google.
Actually, looking at the top five countries in the geo breakdown, Facebook is dropping in a lot of places in the world. Not sure what's going on there.
Comparing the US and worldwide graphs, they appear quite similar to me. The world graph has a strong rise mid-2010, where it raises above the US line for the first time. Then, they both level out with some jig-jogs shortly before the start of 2011.
