Many search engines want you to make their engine your default home page. But let's think about that. Why, today, 2006, would you want to make a search engine your home page? Any search engine, that has a box, and a search button, as the home page adds no more value that you using a toolbar in your browser, that allows you to search via the toolbar.

But still, people have set Google.com as their home page.

Back in the day, I used to set Yahoo.com as my home page, because Yahoo.com is a portal. Now I set Ask.com as my home page, specifically because (1) I use bloglines a lot and (2) I want to force myself to search with Ask.com more often.

Why do you think Google made google.com/ig? Yea, now that is a page worthy of being a home page. Same with Yahoo.com or my.yahoo.com but not search.yahoo.com, unless you activate some features on that page such as Yahoo! News results on search.yahoo.com. Of course, the same with google.com and search.msn.com. Heck, live.com gives you the ability to add portal like features also.

So why do people make Google.com without any portal like features their home page?
- They don't have a toolbar
- They don't know how to use a toolbar
- They are afraid to use any toolbar
- They want to be cool