You are hereTop Search Terms of 2006 (Yahoo!)
Top Search Terms of 2006 (Yahoo!)
Although 2006 isn't over yet, Yahoo! has released their top search terms of 2006 in an attempt to steal some of Google's Zeitgeist's thunder (although remember, with the release of Google Trends, you could potentially pull much of this information at any time you wanted using any timeframe you wanted). There isn't much that is groundbreaking here when you look at top search terms, but I'll reaffirm the conclusions you could draw from this data (as well as data from previous years):
- Young, Hot Female Celebrities Rule - Ah, nothing says the Internet like guys searching for hot, young women. Entertainment searches still dominate the Top 10 overall searches with the likes of Spears, Hilton, Lohan and Simpson dominating the Top 10 overall search terms. Sex still sells big on the Internet.
- Soccer is the world's sport, Basketball and Hockey ... not so much - Although not a major sport here in the United States, 3 international soccer teams round out the Top 10 showing the true power and interest of football around the world. Meanwhile, the NBA, who has tried to internationalize their sport with trips over to Japan, the signing of Yao Ming, etc. doesn't have a single team in the Top 10 searches. As for professional hockey, there's no sight of them either. Baseball and American Football are the other two sports which dominate sports related searches.
- Comic Books ruled the Big Screen - Of all the widely searched movies of 2006, comic book characters and story lines took almost half of the spots in the Top 10 Movie searches for 2006. Also, even though Borat was released later in the year and is currently still in movie theaters, Borat snuck into the Top 10 in last place showing the power of viral marketing over the Internet since much of the great Borat press stemmed from blogs, social news sites, etc.
You're probably asking yourself - how can I use this data to drive more data to my website. In most cases, you probably can't - especially if your site's niche isn't one of the categories Yahoo! released search data for, but you can draw conclusions that should help you some. First, remember that Yahoo! search is seen by many to be the search engine used by many non-technical users; however, Yahoo! does have a very strong international user base to consider as well. Make sure your content can be consumed and understood on an international basis. Second, when you see the success of a recent movie like Borat, remember to be proactive and not reactive when providing users new content. If you're first to the market, your information will be found first, linked to first and these links should help make your page stand out as an authoritative source to search engines. Lastly, even in the Top 10, you can see a diverse range of searched terms; therefore, make sure that your site is diverse enough to grab traffic from many areas, but not too diverse as to be too cluttered or difficult to find information.
I'll be curious to see how Google's 2006 data stacks up against Yahoo!'s.
Google has released their 2006 Google Zeitgeist data to the public.
Just a real quick comment on the data -
I invite people (all 3 of you) who read these comments to take a look at the Yahoo! data and compare it to the Google data and draw conclusions on the user base for both search engines.
It just goes to show the state of our country where the list is full of nothing but hot chicks and guys who are beating each other with chairs. Here is my opinion on the matter.
-Rinsem
Rinsem -
Interesting article. I like how you took the approach of "was this really what the founders of the World Wide Web really intended". I'm not sure that they ever intended it to be the "cesspool" that it has turned into (an entertainment, gossip, pr0n source), but I do think that its original intention has come to fruition. Although those are the most popular searches, the success of sites like Wikipedia, Yahoo! Answers, Google Groups, etc. show that the original intended purpose is still being carried out. Unfortunately, the masses (who are now using the Internet as opposed to just a select group of people) have taken their interests and views and flooded the Internet with a lot of data that isn't very valuable.
Taking all the above into account, you can see that in the near future custom search engines or even silo'd in data warehouses may spring up to seperate the "good" and "bad" data.
I do agree that the intended use is still out there, however, I would say that use is by far in the minority when it comes to the casual web surfer. It is more or less a direct reflection of where our society has come to show that more people are interested in these topics than anything with any academic value to it what so ever.
On the other hand, I do appreciate your comments and see that given the prevalence of wiki use, all hope has not been lost. Thanks for stopping by and reading my article by the way!