Valleywag reported last week that Google's "I'm Feeling Lucky" button, which takes the user directly to the #1 result for a particular search phrase, costs the company $110 million per year in lost revenues because the button bypasses all sponsored results (and is used in 1% of all searches).
Ironically, people still don't know what it is. I remember thinking that "I'm Feeling Lucky" would randomly bring me to a website related to the search term, but it didn't necessarily have to be the #1 ranking.
Why does Google keep it? It's part of who they are.
A few years ago back at SES NYC I was at a session and I cannot remember who, but a woman from Google and I were talking and she stated that they did a test years ago and that when they removed the "I'm Feeling Lucky" button there were a ton of complaints. Most people inquired about something that changed on the site- but could not point out what it was....
Yeah, it's useless to most people, but it still identifies the Google search engine. Funny and ironic at the same time.
Forum discussion continues at Sphinn.
