Has Google Toolbar gone mainstream?

I've had the tool bar sitting on my browser for the past 3 months. I always use google to search so it was just a bit quicker then going directly to the site.

Are there any disadvantages?

>> Are there any disadvantages?

Well it does phone the mothership to tell on you. There have been a couple of people posting how they have had Google through a site that is brand new, no links in or out, and which should therefore be unfindable

If you use the site search you can find some good threads about the toolbar, but check this one [webmasterworld.com] particularly

In short, I think that if you are an SEOer without domain farms, or sneaky-sneak techniques to hide, you should be fine. If you are a hardcore affiliate whiz, or you have a domain farm maintained for boosting client PR, perhaps you should keep the toolbar on a "clean machine" that gets a regualr rebuild

>Are there any disadvantages?

Privacy.

Privacy Isn't really lost is it? After all when you search on Google it is logged and given your IP address. The google toolbar is no different is it?

That Google bar goes with you, everywhere you go...

DG

Yes - it is a huge privacy thing - and their privacy policy frankly sucks.

It basically says - hey we are watching you - everything you do - and just wanted to let you know.

Without the toolbar - google knows every search you made, and when you made it.

With the toolbar, they know all that, plus everything you click on - every place you go, even your passwords and other queries you make in many cases - as they are in the url.

That being said - the toolbar is great, it would be nice if people could "delete" the ir history - "delete the last 24 hours" or things like that.

Once google comes out with their custom SERP - it will be VERY useful.

Where I work, there are a number of people who use the Google toolbar. These are not particularly internet savvy people. Interestingly one thought that page rank had something to do with the number of visitors to the site (which I guess indirectly it does :)).

I haven't seen an overwhelming amount of people using the Toolbar, and most of the people that do use it, have little to no idea what PR means, or how it is calculated.

All my office (about 15) and friends (not saying for fear of sarcasm and jokes but lets just say it exceeds 20) use the Google toolbar.

Cfel2000,

But do they use it because you told them about it? I wonder how many people actually find it on their own, or take the time to read up on it.

Actually, alot of the people (about 60%) were using the Google toolbar without my intervention

Looking at log files, it seems that a fair number of searchers use it, on any given day up to 50% of referrals from Google indicate is was the navbar.

When you don't have the Toolbar, Google offers it on the homepage.

My university gave new computers to all researchers last year and IE came will a google toolbar already installed. I`m not sure if it was just the Faculty of Medecine or the whole school.. but it was a sizable chunk of people none the less.

>> When you don't have the Toolbar, Google offers it on the homepage

Only if you have a non-infected IE installation. Opera IDed as IE doesn't get offered it, but then I'm not sure how good a match for the genuine IE UA Opera gives. Anyone got a full UA spoofing browser they could test it with?

Most of the TechTV television shows mention the toolbar at least once a week.
Lots of viewers and lots of downloads.
I get a kick out of the web sites that are mentioned on the ScreenSavers show, every time a site is mentioned the viewers bring it down from traffic overload.

Most of my frinds and relativs use it, not for PR but for the easy search option. Most of then don't know og care about PR, they are not in the buisness. My 12 year old daughter uses the toolebar on a dayly basis (and she understand what PR is about)

Is it just me or are you also seeing an increase of referrals from the toolbar?

It has happened in the last weeks.

2-7% of my referrals seem to be from the Toolbar search function (methodology below from one small, UK centric site).

I have the Toolbar running whenever I'm using IE (quite often at the moment) but usually go to www.google.com to search (as it's linked from my start page and my Toolbar doesn't have a keyboard shortcut).

[root logs]# grep google access ¦ grep -v cache ¦ grep -v images.goog ¦ grep 'q=' ¦ grep -iv googlebot -c
1495
[root logs]# grep google access ¦ grep -v cache ¦ grep -v images.goog ¦ grep 'q=' ¦ grep -iv googlebot ¦ grep navclient -c
76

76/1495 = 5%

Seems like a lot of regular people are starting to find the toolbar. It's gaining mainstream use by word of mouth, just like the original Google search. :)

Wow, just checked my results. On my two VERY consumer-focused (shouldn't get a good response from a technical audiance), I am finding that 4.4% and 4.3% of my Google visitors are from the toolbar. That's really higher than I'd have expected.

Good job Google. I hope that Google realizes exactly why they are having success and doesn't screw up like Altavista does.

Alex