Google Zeitgeist 2009 – And The Winner Is?

Almost another year has gone by and Google has already released it’s Zeitgeist (Spirits of Time) for 2009. Google Zeitgeist is some sort of a recap compilation of the most popular searches (by volume) throughout the year. The methodology of the data compilation is based on the aggregation of gazillion queries users typed into Google search this year. Data are gathered from multiple sources, including Insights for Search, Google Trends and internal data tools. As Mr G says, no personal information are used.

The 10 Most Popular Searched Item In The World For 2009 are:

1. michael jackson
2. facebook
3. tuenti
4. twitter
5. sanalika
6. new moon
7. lady gaga
8. windows 7
9. dantri.com.vn
10. torpedo gratis

No surprises on #1, but if you take a look at the list, there are popular items which, quite frankly, are the first time I ever heard about them (sanalika and torpedo gratis). “Gratis” in Portuguese (and Spanish) means free, so I gather that “Free Torpedoes” are very popular somewhere in the sphere:)

Other lists include:
Fastest Rising In Entertainment (#1 Again Michael Jackson)
Fastest Rising In Food and Drink (#1 Acai Berry)
Fastest Falling (#1 Beijing 2008 – makes sense)
Fastest Rising In Sports (#1 Real Madrid)

And it does not stop there, you can see many more information about top searches and trends for 2009 in different regions, cities, etc. Google also provides tools which you use to further use to discover more about global and regional search terms over time (in some cases, as far back as 2004). Gather ideas for your next blog post, get ideas for keywords, or simply get informed. Here are the tools you can use (Google Excerpt):

• Google Trends – For a broad look at search query data, enter up to five search terms to see relative popularity over time.
• Trends for Websites (U.S. only) – Google Trends for website traffic data. Type in a website address to see visitors by region and related sites visited.
• Insights for Search – A closer look at search query data for power users. Create your own lists of “most popular” and “fastest rising” queries for different geographic regions over time and by topic.
• Hot Trends (U.S., India, Singapore, and Japan only) – The top 40 fastest-rising search queries right now, updated continuously throughout the day.

Now for the not so scary part. You can perform a personalize Zeitgeist of your own. Take a closer look at your own web behavior over the past year and you might get surprised. If you have a Google account (who doesn’t) you can use Web History and get an interesting glimpse at what you have been doing in the past. To try it out, log into Web History with your Google Account and click on the “Trends” tab. It might be fun to look back or….