Comment by pmoriarty | Hacker News Reader

Comment by pmoriarty | Hacker News Reader

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My mom has a Windows laptop which she uses without even really understanding what a web browser is, or what a search engine is. She uses Bing because that's what the Windows search bar defaults to and because the default web browser on Windows by default opens with MSN as its home page, and she doesn't understand she has a choice in any of this, and probably wouldn't bother to change anything even if she did understand and knew how to change it.

I strongly suspect that many Bing users are similarly borderline computer-illiterate, and just use Bing because it's the default.

The same probably goes for many Google users, a lot of whom were probably tricked by some software they installed that had a tiny checkmark and small print telling them it was going to install Chrome and make Google their home page.

I think the demographics that just use the default search engine are probably most desirable for the advertising publisher as they are more likely to click on ads.

Advertisers aren't looking for the most likely to click, they are looking for the most likely to convert. Clicks cost money so they only want to pay for people that are highly targeted. This is why search advertising is so powerful, it is about matching the intent of the user (their search terms) to products and services, and getting them at the right time (when they are open to new paths).

Search ads are powerful for targeting users, but branding requires FB kind of ads.

My mom would bing www.google.com and then go from there. So maybe give yours some credit. Yes, it's totally different from what we (we as in "technologically raised people") would do, but it still is a valid workaround.

Show her whats better about Duck Duck Go, Google or whatever other alternative you see fit, have her see the value, and she'll probably switch in a way that's convenient to her.

Yeah, a huge portion of the traffic to a search engine is always going to come from default users. I don't think that changes this much, or makes it misleading or anything.

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