social-media-searches

Update: 2017’s Top Google Searches Study Released – Most Searched Keywords on the Internet v5

We’ve never lost our curiosity about what we think “drives the world” here in the early 21st century.  As a result, we’ve continued to research what people are interested in online; i.e., “What are the most searched keywords in the world?

Without further adieu, we welcome you all to read 2014’s Most Popular Keywords Study Version 4.

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This year in the fourth rendition of the examination of what people are interested in online (at least), we’ve decided to break up the “Top 100 Searches” by blocks of 10.  Before we dive deep into the individual search keywords and/or phrases, let’s start off with the general findings from this year’s study:

2014’s Most Popular Google Searches Highlights

  • The total number of “exact searches” of the Top 100 has grown 52% in 2 years from  approximately  8.3 billion to 12.6 billion searches
  • The Top 5 Categories were Social Media (5 bill+), Adult Content (1.54 bill+), Video (1.5 bill+), Email (1.3 bill+) and Search (1.09 bill+) in terms of volume of searches respectively
  • Top Most Searched Categories in terms of permutations of phrases were Adult Content (20), Social Media (17), Email (10), Reference (9) and Shopping (9) respectively
  • As our “very positive” commenter “Color me laughing” in the 2012’s survey would point out, many of these may be not exactly searches, but are potentially just methods of navigating to the websites of choice as proven by our #28th, #36th and #75th ranked searches  might prove
  • Similarly, it appears only 10 out of the 100 searches are real topics that people are looking for in general (#13, #16, #21, #23, #27, #34, #41, #49, #58, #70); an 11th general search topic shows up in the bonus 15 extra top searches at the end will be revealed as well

Top 10 Google Searches

Top 10 Google Searches in 2014

  • We were discussing this with my friend from a Philadelphia SEO Company – and the most interesting thing is, the top 10 hasn’t changed much in 2 years.
  • Facebook searches continue to dominate with 3 of the Top 10 searching for  Facebook.com
  • Only one search term/phrase  broke into  the Top 10 outside of the 2012’s  Top 10 List: “xnxx”
  • All phrases grew in volume including phrases that dropped – “hotmail” or “yahoo” for example grew 22% & 23% despite their slight drops in rankings
  • All searches in the Top 10 were aiming for a website.  For example, #6 and #10 were shorter methods to reach Facebook.com

Top 11 through 20th Searches on Google in 2014

2014s Top 11-20 Google Searches

  • As we originally discovered in the first couple of iterations of this survey, Maslow was right in that people think about their physiological needs as much as they need air and water.  #13, #14, #16, #17 and #19 all prove this.
  • Our first two “topics” are related to the human need to reproduce or the “human body cannot function properly and will ultimately fail.”  Especially in the privacy on one’s home, people are searching for topics that have continued their dominance over the years.  The two topics are highlighted in yellow at #13 and #16 jumping 7 and 8 spots respectively from 2 years ago.
  • The only phrase that lost traffic was “facebook login.”  People appear to no longer need to add to their search phrases and are realizing that being lazy works on the Internet in terms of search.
  • “Amazon” more than doubled skyrocketing it up 4 places.
  • The impact of searches on mobile devices can be seen in “Google maps”  jumping 8 places in the most recent edition of our survey.

Curious about how the Top Searches on the Internet have changed since the previous version?  Check out our 2012 Study on the top keywords searched on the Internet.  

Top 21 through 30th Searches on Google in 2014

2014s Top 21-30 Google Searches

  • 3 more topics are profiled in the 21st through 30th searches of 2014: 1 adult oriented and the other two related to reference
  • The two reference topics have also gained significantly growing from 45th and 42nd searches into the top 30
  • Our first breakout search is one of the most confusing and unclear phenomena on the web: “friv”  Try and wikipedia it or try to find news on it, but you won’t find much (at least here in early 2015) that helps you understand it besides that it’s a free gaming site with lots of copycats.
  • #28 shows that not only are people are lazy online, but google’s allowing them to be and that when someone types “f”, their browser will typically resolve to the last website they surfed that starts with the letter: i.e., facebook.  Google now also has it as the #1 site when searching with the single letter.

Top 31 through 40th Searches on Google in 2014

2014s Top 31-40 Google Searches

  • One of the biggest drops in search volume was with the keyword “msn.”  It’s no longer msn, but bing or live.  In 2012, MSN.com was ranked #17 in the world approximately and today, they’re down to #34 (as of 1/19/2015)
  • The French craigslist also dropped a number of places down to #32 from it’s Top 30 position in 2012, as reported by this firme de SEO
  • Another single letter search supports both (coincidentally) google and humans are equating laziness to ease for searches in the #36 search which skyrocketed from #1040 in 2012
  • Movies continued their popularity in the #40 search also showing the company’s staying power

Top 41 through 50th Searches on Google in 2014

2014s Top 41-50 Google Searches

  • People like “free” and as mentioned above, they like “sex” too showing two additional topics are on the minds of many in the #41st search and #49th, but the latter term has become a less common way to find the free adult material online
  • Related, a new adult term enters the list which was outside the Top 100 in 2012 and jumped 118 spots to #47
  • In contrast to French’s craiglist, Turkey’s version of the site has grown moving 6 spots up in 2 years
  • Instagram also grows popular in the past 2 years as a very popular app and search online

Curious about how the Top Searches on the Internet have changed since the previous version?  Check out our 2012 Study on the top keywords searched on the Internet.  

Top 51 through 60th Searches on Google in 2014

2014s Top 51-60 Google Searches

  • Two breakout searches land themselves in the Top 60 searches of 2014: the UK’s “daily mail” and “orange”, a cellphone provider.  The brits  are definitely searching and as a result two of their more prominent brands are benefiting.
  • LinkedIn also continues to rise to a very strong property online.  More people are being “professional” on LinkedIn and people are realizing more and more they need to be “LinkedIn” or they may not have a channel which has helped many connect, secure jobs and much more.  The search jumps almost 50 spots in 2014’s Top 100.
  • Ikea, BBC News and CNN all continue to rise as well showing their strengths as popular cultural needs in both furniture and news

Top 61 through 70th Searches on Google in 2014

2014s Top 61-70 Google Searches

  • “libero mail” is the Italian’s way of asking for free mail.  The type needs to be updated to “email”, but with our team being somewhat limited, we may not do the updates until later.  Nevertheless, the Italians have bolstered the “free email” seaerch up into the Top 100 whereas in the past, it was nowhere to be seen.
  • The Russians also have showen they can be social and making their version of “facebook” rise to #62 from almost nowhere in 2012 (i.e., #635)
  • And one topic that definitely has made a dent in this year’s Top 100 list is “email” or here searched as “mail”

Top 71 through 80th Searches on Google in 2014

2014s Top 71-80 Google Searches

  • Pinterest, now one of the top social media websites in the world has also risen over 100+ spots to #73
  • The Russians add another social media property to their needs as well driving “odnoklassniki” up to #77.  The search should also be labeled a “2014 Breakout Search”, but again, the HR resources…
  • And 2 searches (bbc and tube8) have dropped a bit in the #79 and #80 positions

Top 81 through 90th Searches on Google in 2014

2014s Top 81-90 Google Searches

  • Minecraft is popular with kids and so much so, it’s jumped into the #89th position this year despite not being on the radar in 2012
  • The Italians also like their weather as much as most people do driving up “meteo” to #82
  • Despite the large sum of money Microsoft paid for Skype, the search for the free online tool has fell to #81.  Perhaps most of the world now knows about it and the searches are less needed moving forward.
  • Target loses a little ground, while another offline brand ryanair jumps slightly

Curious about how the Top Searches on the Internet have changed since the previous version?  Check out our 2012 Study on the top keywords searched on the Internet.  

Top 91 through 100th Searches on Google in 2014

2014s Top 91-100 Google Searches

  • Rounding out the Top 100, we have 2 new popular online destinations – one in mobile and the other as a free storage service: “whatsapp” and “dropbox”
  • You don’t need to spell to be a porn freak.  Many confused sex addicts type in “xxnx” vs. the site’s true spelling of “xnxx”.
  • And several more popular searches in 2012 drop: mapquest, pandora and the French’s version of Hulu.  Where’s Hulu, by the way?  It was #116 in 2012, but now has dropped 4.1 million monthly searches basically making it almost invisible in this sphere of  “monster searches”

Lastly, we thought we would add the #101st through #115th searches in this year’s  survey.  Thus the “+” at the end of the title.

In this year’s study, we found that the bar to even make the Top 115 searches was an average of 16.6 million monthly searches over the past 12 months.  In 2012, the bar was approximately 11.1 million average monthly searches.  It shows that searches appear to have grown approximately close to 50% or so more here 2 years later.  At least on the upper end, we’re definitely seeing some phrases double and triple and even ones that grow 20+ percentage points in 2 years are still dropping in ranking.

Rounding off the 2014 “Top Gooogle Searches” list, we have:

Top 101 through 115th Searches on Google in 2014

2014s Top 101-115 Google Searches

  • In this final batch of Top Google Searches, we find our 11th “highly sought after search topic” in “translator” being needed more now as the world becomes more connected
  • A UK bank grows stronger at least online with #103’s top search of 2014
  • Cricket is much more popular than most people outside the areas of India and other regions of Australasia might realize giving the search “cricinfo” the #104th position jumping 25 spots
  • 3 searches not seen in our 2012 list have made the Top 115: gumtree, the UK version of Craigslist, Italians wanting to translate with “traduttore” and a new Amazon from the UK called “argos”.  Retail definitely has a very “trendy” way of expressing itself through searches.
  • And lastly, the spanish have shown us that the most important commodity in society is very much valued: “time”

Curious about how the Top Searches on the Internet have changed since the previous version?  Check out our 2012 Study on the top keywords searched on the Internet.  

Methodology:

We’re not going into as much detail in this post, but we’re happy to share the methodology to anyone who requests it.  It will be very much similar to the methods we used in the 2012 survey except continuing to look under every nook and cranny and even scouring the list of 8000+ search terms we found popular back in 2012 to see if any rose up in the ranks.  As you can see, many did.

We also plan to do more “drilled down” versions of this data including one that focuses on the “Most Searched Topics on Google.”  Obviously,  Color  me  laughing would appreciate that list much more than this one.  We decided to honor him or her with one focusing on those topics.  We’ve already gathered 238 topics that would be very educational for those curious about what type of “subjects” people are looking for.  Look out for that post here in the later part of the year.  

We hope you enjoyed and we welcome anyone who wants to give feedback, assist or do us one better.  We would even be happy to take donations to hopefully turn this into a fully fledged project that could benefit many including results and data for many industries we can’t even profile due to the lack of HRs.

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