Google Zeitgeist 2008

bahstid writes "As the year comes to a close, it's time to look at the big events, memorable moments and emerging trends that captivated us in 2008. As it happens, studying the aggregation of the billions of search queries that people type into the Google search box gives us a glimpse into the zeitgeist — the spirit of the times. While the global aggregated results are what one might expect, the breakdown by country is filled with 'hotmail,' 'yahoo' and 'facebook,' indicating that in 2008 your average user still hasn't quite grasped this address bar thing." This year's focus on the US presidential election and the economic crisis made for some interesting trends. It also seems that many Americans frequently checked their Facebook profile while watching American Idol and wondering who Sarah Palin was.

Comments

Google should edit their Zeitgeist lists, though

[orbz]

Really, what needs to happen nowadays is that Google should separate those "keywords" that exactly match the top-returned URL... then we'd have a better idea of what people are actually *searching* for, versus what they're just trying to access.

Google Trends

[yotto]

I've been doing a podcast based on the Google Trends, which the Zeitgeist is directly related to, for almost 1.5 years now and I must say, watching the trends weekly (and daily) is an interesting exercise. We actually go through and try to find why things were searched for, and while 90% of the terms are based on TV shows (Predominately Extreme Home Makeover and House), the few that are from other sources (xkcd pops up occasionally, as does Google's ever-changing logo) are where the fun lies. That, and the searches for stuff like "Hot Karl" and "Anal Fissures."

Re:to be fair

[crow]

Yes, particularly for two reasons:

1) It protects you from typos. If you miss a character, it's immediately obvious before you've helped out a typo squatter.

2) It often gives you options to select certain topics within a given site, allowing you to more easily navigate to the portion of the site you actually want.

The real search engine is just for backup

[Animats]

The front-end machines at Google have a set of canned replies for common queries. Most queries to Google are in fact answered by the first front-end machine reached, without invoking the main search engine at all. The size of the front-end cache is considered proprietary, but it's not huge.

Most queries just aren't very original.

Re:to be fair

[Metaphorically]

When the kids here want to go to facebook (or more likely runescape) on one of several computers in the house where it's not bookmarked, I've taught them to just google it - using the search box next to the address bar.

This is to prevent typos.

It applies doubly so to the flash game site of the week where neither they nor I am sure of the correct domain name.