Experian Hitwise has released their annual list of the year's most searched terms on search engines and as expected, everyone likes Facebook. The social networking giant topped the list for the third-year running, followed by second-place YouTube which moved up from third place in 2010. Craig's List, eBay and strangely, Mapquest also made the top 10, but dominance of social media search terms is the real take-away. Social networking search terms were by the most commonly searched category, accounting for 4.18 percent of the top 50 terms overall (an increase of 12 percent year over year). However, it is 'Facebook' itself that accounted for the lion's share of that percentage. 3.48 of the top 50 terms are variations on the name, like 'Facebook Login' and 'facebook.com'.
Curiously, two of the top ten search terms are for a search engine: 'Yahoo' and 'yahoo.com' clocked in at 6 and 10 respectively, proving that a lot of people seem to remember a time before Google, but not how to find it. Perhaps they ought to let someone google that for them. The top ten most-searched terms are:
1) facebook
2) youtube
3) facebook login
4) craigslist
5) facebook.com
6) yahoo
7) ebay
8) www.facebook.com
9) mapquest
10) yahoo.com
Experian Hitwise also tracked the most-visited sites, and as with search-terms, Facebook topped the list. That ought to give another headache to number 2 Google, already wiping egg of its face after news that Facebook is the most popular Android app. While YouTube is in a healthy 3rd place, Gmail ranked 8 while Yahoo Mail came in at number 4. The top ten most visited sites are:
1) Facebook
2) Google
3) YouTube
4) Yahoo Mail
5) Yahoo.com
6) Bing
7) Yahoo search
8) Gmail
9) Mail.live.com
10) MSN
And because it is of the most pressing concern, the top public figure searched for online was Justin Beiber. While this may seem somewhat disturbing in the same year Osama Bin Ladin was killed, we can take consolation in news that he at least beat Charlie Sheen handily. The Tiger Blood crazyman came in at sixth place. The full press release, including data on music searches, movie titles and 'personality searches, is available on Experian's official site.
