How could a simple button on their search page lose them money? The answer is actually quite simple.
The "I'm feeling lucky" button allows users to be taken directly to the first search result, which means the user completely skips all other search engine results and pages.
How could this lose them money? According to statistics around 1% of all searches done on Google use this button, completely skipping all possible advertising.
This results in the company losing around $110 million dollars in potential profits!
So why does the company keep an option that looses them a massive amount of profit?
Simply because people like it and it keeps them coming back! Recently, however, Google featured their Nexus 7 tablet on their homepage, making it the first time any advertising has been featured on their homepage.