An Introduction to Real World Search Engine User Behavior
You were just assigned the task to update your website’s keywords. Not yet in the mood to pull out a thesaurus or check out the competition’s keyword meta tags? Then start with a bit of educational fun, reviewing how users really query search engines. Each of the major search engines offers, or has offered, insight into current search trends. In some cases, the engines also report the actual top internet searches. While clearly an indicator of major news events and other social phenomena, top search trends show how users rely on just one or two words to express what they are looking to find.
Google Zeitgeist
Google Zeitgeist, with achieves back to January 2001, currently reports on internet searches over three time intervals: weekly, monthly and yearly. Data break outs for each reporting period differ, so it is worth consulting each.
Weekly Google Zeitgeist snapshots (currently only for Google.com searches) are of trends, reflecting the top search climbers. One might assume that Google applies a filter to these results as not all “popular human activity” seems to be represented, although it should be noted that the search term Viagra does show up in a few zeitgeist surveys.
Monthly Google Zeitgeist reports are on “popular” terms, While both Google’s Italian Zeitgeist and Google’s German Zeitgeist label the searches as “Most popular terms” (I termini più popolari) and “Most performed search queries” Meist durchgeführte Suchanfragen, respectively, the English interface speaks more ambiguously of “Popular Queries“; one suspects the use of più/meist is simply a translation oversight.
Moving beyond a trend interpretation of the queries, consider the top three Social Media queries for March 2006:
Even when a user knows a domain name, they still find comfort using a search engine as their starting point – the queries are for variants of myspace, including the domain myspace.com. Similarly, the top three movie searches are for sites where the search word is part of the domain name:
One probable explanation is that users find a search engine is a trusted means to cut through the bewildering confusion of domain name extensions and find The site they are looking for.
Google Trends
A related tool, Google Trends, allows a user to compare searches over time for multiple keywords or keyword phrases. While this tool has clear value for keyword selection (and revision!), it remains to be seen how accurate the data is. A clear disclaimer notes:
Google Trends aims to provide insights into broad search patterns. It is based upon just a portion of our searches, and several approximations are used when computing your results. Please keep this in mind when using it.
Many Google tools, such as the Google inbound link tool, have been so crippled as to render them rather useless. Lets hope this fate does not befall Google Trends. Google Trends has been available since 10 May 2006.
Catch Google Zeitgeist TV!
At the end of February 2006 Google launched a video program dedicated to Search Trends, Google current, on Al Gore’s Current.tv. With a lighthearted approach, each 2-3 minute segment places popular search terms in the current events context driving them.
Yahoo! Buzz
Yahoo!’s Buzz is a daily (Tuesday through Saturday) look at “What the world is searching for“. It includes lists of “top movers” and “top leaders” along with a more in depth narrative putting the top searches in context. Unlike Google, Yahoo! offers a nice description of how the top searches are determined. An RSS feed is available to receive update notifications. Yahoo! Buzz is also available in local versions for France, the UK and Canada. We hope Yahoo! starts a version for Italy soon.
MSN Search Insider (Windows Live)
The MSN Search Insider provides a scrolling listing of the top 200 searches over the past week. Unfortunately, the list, not in any apparent order, does not easily lend itself to search keyword analysis. MSN warns that the list is unfiltered which makes it more accurate than those offered by Google, Yahoo! and Ask.
Other functionality includes a fun “duel” tool pitting two searches against each other (and encouraging Search Insider users to click on the results, skewing the data!).
As the Search Insider data has not updated since August 2005, the future of the MSN Search Insider is in doubt.
Update 3/2007: MSN Search Insider is no longer available. A similar tool for the current Windows Live has not (yet) been released.
Ask IQ (Interesting Queries)
Ask IQ (Interesting Queries) presents top searches for the past week with breakouts for news, movies and top advancers. Although the Ask IQ description speaks of “the most popular search terms”, the lists seem a bit too “clean” to be completely accurate. A historical achieve is not yet available.
In Conclusion
While more fun than strategic, overall search trends do illustrate two key points:
- Most searches are just a few words
- Many users start with a search engine even when they know or have a good idea of a site’s domain name
Similar Posts:
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Sean Carlos is a web marketing consultant & teacher, assisting companies with their Search (SEO + PPC = SEM), Social Media & Digital Media Measurement strategies. Sean first worked with text indexing in 1990 in a project for the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Since then he worked for Hewlett-Packard Consulting and later as IT Manager of a real estate website before founding Antezeta in 2006. Sean is an 
I’ve been fascinated and frustrated to observe what seems to be a common practice among non-expert computer users.
It’s using Google search box in the way an address box was intended.
This helps explain why bebo and facebook are very common searches. It’s not a case of people looking for references to those sites, it’s a ‘please take me to my favourite site’ request, not a search request.
Also very few non-expert computer users understand favourites or bookmarks. Therefore they constantly use Google several times a day to access their favourite site.
Here are the most popular search terms in the UK in Google last year.
1. facebook
2. bbc
3. youtube
4. ebay
5. games
6. news
7. hotmail
8. bebo
9. yahoo
10. jobs
Strip out the ones that look like requests to access a named site and you are left with Games, News, Jobs.
I think this means that to find out what people are SEARCHING for, one needs a different method.
thanks for share
what software to see top keyword search in google..?
Thank you for sharing.:)
thanks for the well explained article, ever since im a google user and i have no problem in searching or surfing in google search coz it has everything. and also tried google trend and its so easy to use. great info..
Informative sharing, thank you for sharing about the keyword search trends in Google, Yahoo and MSN.
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I’m looking for a keyword search tool which can hit something pretty specific as in number of searches for something that only gets hit once or twice a year for a period of 3 weeks. What is the best search tool for looking at data like this?
Till now I was only confortable with Google but now i have got an idea about yahoo and msn. Thank you for the article.
Is there a report available for purchase which tracks business related words? As interesting as Brittney Spears is, I would prefer search trends on grown up phrases?
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