Lo-Tek Tips

When someone give you a web address, which of these do you do?

• A. Type the address into the address box of the browser.
• B. Go to Google (or Bing or Ask, or whatever) and type in the address.

Here are the results of your actions:

• When you do A, your computer makes a request from the specified server for the specified page.
• When you do B, your computer sends a request to Google (or Bing or Ask, or whatever), which returns a set of search results. You then click a link to get to the web address you typed in the first place. This is assuming the search engine could find it.

So here’s the deal:

I recommend A. This limits the interaction – it’s just your computer and the target computer. In certain situations (which I create all the time) the specified address is not available from a menu on the website. In my case, I put a bunch of audio or video files in a folder on my webserver, and send someone links to the folder. The search engines have no idea they are there, and that’s as it should be.

If you do B, you are doing all of the following:

• You tell the search engine what you are interested in. The search engine can use this later to try to sell you stuff. (You may have noticed that pictures of stuff you just looked for starts showing up on other pages later.)
• You scan through the set of results. The search engine is recommending other stuff to you. If you are lucky, you actually find the page you are trying to get to.
• The search engine is tracking the fact that you came to them for your information. It is also tracking which things you clicked on. In some cases it is also making money off the click.

In short, you are giving a bunch of information to the search engine.

Don’t get me wrong – search engines are awesome when you are searching for something. If you know the address, you are going through a bunch of extra steps and involving a third party unnecessarily. And in some cases they don’t know anything about the address you are giving them.

So instead of here:

Type it here:

One more thing:

When you go to type that address, here’s what I’ve seen dozens of people do:

1. Click the address bar. The whole address is selected.
2. Click at the end of the web address. If it’s really long one, they click in the middle, arrow to the end, then backspace to the beginning.

There’s a better, way faster way, based on the following concept:

if something is selected, the next thing you type will replace whatever was selected.

You don’t need to do anything but start typing.

Ok, two more things:

You don’t have to type http://. You don’t have to type www. Just type the web address. For example, mine is:

lotek.bobmerrill.com.

If you click in the address bar and type that and hit enter, you are done.

Next up: Why are all these tabs open?