because almost everyone enters "facebook" into either their address bar or google search box to get to facebook.

I recall reading at some point that the most-searched term on Yahoo was "Google" and the most-searched term on Google was "Yahoo", for exactly that reason.

And in the good ol' days, Pamela Anderson topped these charts. (At least on Lycos.)

right, this is exactly what's happening. and also why youtube is beating out facebook

definitely. If your parents'[1] have Google (or Yahoo) as their homepage then give them a url to access and watch them enter it straight into the search box.

[1. Or other non-tech person that you can watch web-browsing]

i'd be curious to see what the trend is going to be over 10 years or so.

possibly like myspace?: http://www.google.com/insights/search/#q=myspace