Now what % of total searches are academic research. My guess is not that great. You and G can have that.
Because the word default is in the URL for that #1 result: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/default.mspx
Did you miss the second part of that sentence, highlighted above? I have heard others say they prefer MSN or Yahoo when searching for products - I can't say I've found that to be the case for what I look for but it's possible. The vast majority of the searches I do are looking for some sort of information, but NOT necessarily academic information -- it could be anything from how to fix a problem with a computer to travel and accomodation to movies or game cheats for my sons -- and that's where I think Google shines.
I think there must be some other reasons why that microsoft link is on top besides taking into account "Default".mspx only.
Possibly, although the word does not appear anywhere on that page and it's hard to believe there are many backlinks using that as anchor text - it is a PR10 though and that won't hurt it any. The #2 page (indented) is http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/download/AllDownloads.aspx?displang=en&qstechnology= -- no "default" in that URL or on the page. The #3 result is also default.asp: http://www.w3schools.com/default.asp The #4 and #5 results have "default" as a folder name in the URL -- www.mtv.com/bands/az/default/artist.jhtml -- as well as in the title. The #6 again has "default" in the URL and the title: http://lafayettebands.gzo.com/default.htm
So what you guess is it correct result for keyword "default" ? One interesting thing is that there is not any result with "default" in domain name.
That may be because default.com redirects to a domain seller and domain.org to a cheap knockoff directory... it doesn't necessarily mean that Google doesn't consider domain names. Indeed, my two closest competitors both have the major keywords in their domain names (I outrank them for most keywords but the ones in the domain names give me the most run for my money).