BBC Search engine has 277 million enquiries in 2004

45 million people used the search engine

[Sanenet]

The engine works by matching key words typed in to different web pages but many people still type in natural language questions. [...] there were many strange enquiries, including: what is a dog?, how do you say basketball? and what is the biggest collection of naval fluff?

[news.bbc.co.uk...]

[engine]

Thanks for that.

That's not a bad number, considering most people are probably using it out of convenience. I certainly wouldn't think of using it for day-to-day searching.

[TinkyWinky]

just think if they were allowed to be commercial - 277 million x lets say an average of £0.10 per click through = £2.7 million smackeroonies....

that's a nice way to get rid of some of the TV Licence - or my vote for more Little Britain episodes ;)