User blog comment:Ranger94/Does Shanks want to be the pirate king ?/@comment-4889755-20150823035843/@comment-4889755-20150824003143

Well, the world was sort of driving of blind optimism, just hoping the One Piece was real for about 20 years. it was never confirmed to exist untill Whitebeard announced it, so that could answer the question on why some people might not have gone for it.

Also, even after it was confirmed to exist, its not CONFIRMED to be on Raftel. I mean, of course for story reasons, it's definately gonna be at Raftel, but the citizens in the OP world have only narrowed it down to Raftel. I'm sure they have their other guesses too.

So, people are still searching for it.