I'm Feeling Lucky

[whatson]

Does anyone know any statistics on what percentage of people use the Im feeling lucky button rather than 'Google Search' when searching on Google?

[PFOnline]

If I'm not mistaken, the "I'm feeling lucky" button always takes you to the #1 site that resulted from the google search.

Now that it's been brought up, I also am kind of curious as to how often the "I'm feeling lucky" button is used in comparison to the "regular google search" button.

Also would be interesting to see how much the #1 result for certain searches are benefitting from the "lucky" button... :)

[jamesyap]

Is has been prove that almost all people are 'unlucky' so they seldom use the button . :)

[sem4u]

Its got to be <1% of searches.

[PFOnline]

It's got to be <1% of searches...

If those numbers are right, why would Google keep the "I'm feeling lucky" button? (Is what I'm wondering.)

[Monkscuba]

Yes, why?

How about they change it to give you a random result from the top 10? That would spread out the luck a bit. We all need a bit of luck now and then....

[jamesyap]

Because they have pay money to trademark the 'Im feeling lucky' button.

Somemore if they put it down they admit everybody is not lucky = google search ain't that good. :)

Yep, Monkscuba, we should recommend to google to return random results of the Top 10! It is more like lucky draw!

[olias]

Or better still if it gave you a site from the top 10 of the previous search that went through the system, so you'd be hoping that someone else knew what you were looking for even if you didn't.

[sean]

To other engines, it is the ultimate in Dirty Harry bravado:

I know what you're thinking, punk. You're thinking, did he fire six shots (keywords) or only five? Well to tell you the truth, I forgot myself in all this excitement. But being as this is a .44 Magnum (Google), the most powerful handgun (search engine) in the world and will blow your head clean off (index 3 billion documents), you've got to ask yourself a question: do I feel lucky? Well do ya, punk?

To the searcher, it is a bit like those "falling backwards" trust-building exercises. Enter your terms, close your eyes, and fall backwards into the arms of Google. Even though it is rarely used, it still serves a purpose.

The "Lucky" searches will appear in your logs with the extra button identification:
[google.com...]
(replace: webmasterworld with: keywords)