Broadband News

Google reveals most searched topics of 2011

Friday 16 December, 2011

By Duncan Heaney

Royal Wedding, iPhone 5 and Rebecca Black rose up the search rankings in 2011.

As we approach the final stretch of 2011, many of us like to take a moment to reflect on the year that was. Google’s no different - the internet search company just released its rundown of the things that the UK and the rest of the world were most interested in this year.

The Google Zeitgeist 2011 report looks at users’ internet searches on Google to define the most popular and fastest rising topics of the year.

The most popular UK searches this year were mainly for high profile news, retail and social media sites. Facebook was the most searched topic in the UK, followed by YouTube, Hotmail and eBay.

Bizarrely, the sixth most searched term on Google was... Google. Maybe some of us got confused or caught in some sort of inescapable search loop?

The royal wedding was the fastest rising topic in the UK, with the nuptials of Prince William and Kate Middleton generating a surge of interest among web users. It seems the wedding was a brief spike, however, as it’s nowhere to be found in the top ten most popular searches.

Excitement over the expected unveiling of the iPhone 5 by Apple this year seems to have gripped the online community, as “iPhone 5” was the second fastest rising topic in the UK. They must have been very disappointed when the company didn’t announce it. Even so, the study shows that the allure of Apple technology isn’t fading - Apple’s iPad 2 was also among the top ten fastest-rising searches.

The analysis also looked at the popularity of people. The fastest rising public figure in 2011 was Ryan Dunn, the star of TV show Jackass who passed away this year. Pop sensation Adele followed in second place. The third fastest-rising star, in search terms at least, was Rebecca Black, whose song and music video “Friday” became a phenomenon on social media sites, and was dubbed by many as “the worst song ever”.

Google’s value as an information service was emphasised by 2011’s list of “what is...” searches. Top searches in this category included: “what is AV?” (a voting system), “what is scampi?” (some things are best left unknown), what are truffles (edible fungus) and “what are piles?” (Uncomfortable).