Every year at this time, Google releases its annual Zeitgeist figures for Australia: a summary of the most popular search terms over the past 12 months. And every year, we have to marvel at how the most popular search terms are sites which you can access in two seconds by typing that word into the address bar and adding “.com” to the end.
2010 is no exception. Here’s the ten most common search terms Australians have searched for on Google:
- YouTube
- eBay
- Hotmail
- Yahoo
- Real Estate
- Maps
- Commonwealth
- White Pages
Honestly, I could weep. And I bet that the people doing those searches aren’t using the search box in their browser either.
The list of fastest-rising search terms, which is a better indicator of growing popularity, is rather more unusual:
- Chatroulette
- Formspring
- ABC3
- World Cup 2010
- Tumblr
- Ancestry.com.au
- Event Cinemas
- Omegle
- Wikileaks
- Jetstar
Share your theories on why everyone is looking for ABC3 in the comments.
Taking the pulse: Australia’s top Google searches 2010 [Google Australia Blog]
Cameron
Thursday, December 9, 2010 at 8:31 AMI frequently use google to find websites that most likely can be access by just amending .com to the name. I dot this for 2 reasons, 1 I don’t actually know if the .com address is correct (is it wikileaks.com or wikileaks.org?) and second I don’t like it how web browsers put addresses you’ve type in the address bar in the drop down list.
StevoTheDevo
Thursday, December 9, 2010 at 9:23 AMI’m the same, but come on…
Searching for Google using Google??
That’s gotta be an infinite loop doesn’t it?
Search for Google – Find Google – Search for Google – Find Google – Search for Google – etc.etc.etc
Molokov
Thursday, December 9, 2010 at 10:54 AMThe IT Crowd got that one right…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wrQUWUfmR_I
Richie
Thursday, December 9, 2010 at 9:05 AMABC3? Very simple… Heartbreak High re-runs.
Trjn
Thursday, December 9, 2010 at 9:15 AMThe third most common search term on Google is Google. That pretty much sums it up for me.
Lionel
Thursday, December 9, 2010 at 9:21 AMChromes address bar is the search box. I wonder if that factors at all into the search rankings.
KIM
Thursday, December 9, 2010 at 9:41 AMI use google to fast track through webpages. Normally it will give you a number of sub-links on a common web page so that way you can click where you want to go as a way of saving time on the actual web page.
Chris Lucas
Thursday, December 9, 2010 at 10:31 AMABC3 easy, kids. My kid did a search for ABC3 last night trying to find more information about some show he caught the end of.
nicky
Thursday, December 9, 2010 at 10:48 AMusing Chrome, i get to youtube in 3 steps
Ctrl+T for new tab
type ‘youtube’
hit [enter] twice
and because you can perform a google search from the address bar in Chorome, google will count my contribution as a search
does that make you feel like we are a little less stupid, Angus?
Angus Kidman
Thursday, December 9, 2010 at 11:06 AMNot exactly. Mostly because Chrome still isn’t used by most Australians, so I doubt that’s what influences the figures much (I have no doubt Lifehacker readers are much more efficient with this stuff than other people). And also slightly because it would be more efficient to set up a keyword bookmark, then you could go Ctrl-T yt enter and be there with even less effort.
Jack Cola
Thursday, December 9, 2010 at 5:42 PMOr, you can just control + enter for .com, shift+enter for .net or control+shift+enter for .org
Works on all browsers
johnd
Thursday, December 9, 2010 at 12:12 PMOf course, all those search terms are people looking for the sites. None of them would be people interested in aspects of, say, fraud control on ebay rather than the site itself.
Search typically begins wide, and then narrows as the search criteria are refined.
I’m afraid your analysis of the data is inaccurate and incomplete at best, and lazy at worst.
Angus Kidman
Thursday, December 9, 2010 at 12:27 PMI absolutely don’t believe that someone searching for fraud control on eBay would start simply by searching for eBay and then refine afterwards. If you’ve got a topic like that in mind, why wouldn’t you search for “fraud control ebay” and then refine your search as needed afterwards?
Jesse Kinross-Smith
Thursday, December 9, 2010 at 12:14 PMI guess it proves we really do live in an idiocracy.
B8two
Thursday, December 9, 2010 at 12:26 PMI think it is as basic as people want to use Google web page (start page) to do a search from.
To make Internet Explorer load faster, about:blank is the best default.
If they want Google page to search from, then click a “bar” and type Google or Google.com
I’ve seen this type of thing many times.
Nephie
Thursday, December 9, 2010 at 2:17 PMCountless times I’ve seen my boss type “Google” in the Google search bar in the top right corner of her IE window. She waits for Google to load and THEN types in her search.
Twice I’ve told her she can run her search from the first field, and both times she said: “yes, I know, I just find this easier”…
*shrug*
Anne
Thursday, December 9, 2010 at 2:20 PMIt’s not just Australians.
UK:
1. facebook
2. youtube
3. bbc
4. hotmail
5. ebay
6. facebook login
7. google
8. mail
9. news
10. you
US:
1. facebook
2. how to
3. lyrics
4. you
5. youtube
6. yahoo
7. google
8. games
9. craigslist
10. weather
Perhaps you should be weeping for the world, or just accept that people can’t be bothered to think and will type everything into google ;)
Lamby
Thursday, December 9, 2010 at 3:48 PMNo,
There are a lot of people out there who don’t know how to use the address bar. They think google is the ONLY way to get to a site. When I ask people why they don’t put ‘facebook.com’ in the address bar, the response is always ‘I didn’t know you could do that’
Google is the gateway to the internet for a lot of people
James Sully
Friday, December 10, 2010 at 10:04 AMAbsolutely. Get that all the time with computer illiterate friends and family.
Ron
Thursday, December 9, 2010 at 4:07 PMSearching for Facebook eBay etc etc seems perfectly valid – why bother trying to remember a string
Such as Question what is ABC our TV is it com.au
Dan
Thursday, December 9, 2010 at 5:59 PMWhat amazes me is that a lot of people are still typing “www.google.com” into their browser address bar, getting to Google Search, then searching for “Facebook” to get to http://www.facebook.com – I have seen very few people actually using the in-browser search bar on FF and the new IE’s…
Todd
Friday, December 10, 2010 at 11:05 AMThe reason that Google is so prominent as a search is that the terrorists are trying to destroy the internet by typing google into google!
Zaneta
Friday, December 17, 2010 at 1:03 PMI annoyingly end up at Google all the time cause i start typing where i want to go in chrome but hit return before it recognises it as a site i frequent and updates the address bar.
So its not that i want to search for google, its just my browser didnt do what i predicted it to do, in the time i expected
jesse dziedzic
Friday, October 21, 2011 at 3:11 AMThis post couldn’t be more right on!!!