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The future of domain names

5 points by z3t4 ↗ HN
About five years ago, when browsers added url search, I noticed something weird in my web statistics. I started to get a ton of traffic from Google. Soon I realized that instead of typing myhomepage.com many people just typed "myhomepage" and google would redirect them.

Today, anyone barely types the domain name ... If you want to go to facebook you just type Fa... and Facebook comes up.

So what is the need of domain names more then search engine optimizations?

5 comments

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brianmwaters_hn
The concept of the URL is really important in order for the web to work... it's what enables linking. Domain names are part of URL's, so there 'ya go.
staunch
Google = phone book. Domain = phone number.
gregcohn
And your type-ahead shortcuts = your address book.
NameNickHN
> So what is the need of domain names more then search engine optimizations?

There is still offline marketing, for example. And there are important websites (e.g. online banking) where I always enter the whole domain and never trust any suggestions.

Cerridwen
Domain names will still work when Google is gone. Domain names work for users who don't use Google or another search engine to type in their domain names.