URL's Are Totally Out

To continue my meme that nobody noticed (Death of the destination site) when I launched it, Cabel notices in Japan that advertisers aren't using URLs, they are using suggested search terms. It's well known in search circles that people use search engines as much for 'navigation' as they do for 'search', i.e. they type in the company they want to go to, even if they know the URL. Cabel is not the first by a long chalk to point out that things are different in Japan - Simon Cozens blogged something very similar in the middle of last year. My take on it is the 'everything everywhere' version - i.e. if people are using search to find you, you need to be where they end up. And while this might seem to mean simply 'hold the No. 1 slot in Google', what it actually means is that you need to distribute your presence rather than consolidate it in one place. The, wherever they seek, you are there. Whatever they search, you are there. This gives control to the 'user' (as in UGC) to construct their own view of online, rather than expecting them to come and find you where you chooose to hang out. Of course, there are several huge industries dedicated to building and promoting the destination websites, so don't expect this to change overnight. But change it will. The web is restructuring itself into a web of fragments.



cabel.name: Japan: URL's Are Totally Out

All the good domain names are gone. Getting people to a specific page in a big site is difficult (who's going to write down anything after the first slash?). And, most tellingly, I see increasingly more users already inadvertently put complete domain names like "gmail" and "netflix" into the Search box of their browsers out of habit — and it doesn't even register that Google pops up and they have to click to get to their destination.

Comments

[Tell Dodo]

I created telldodo.com to serve exactly this purpose: replace URLs with easy to remember, easy to pronounce, easy to spell UNIQUE keywords. Perhaps I should hook up with someone in Japan to create a Japanese version of telldodo. Let me know if you have an interest in developing this idea...