End Of Year Search Engine Data Says More About PR Team Than Users

from the so-cool dept

Tue, Dec 19th 2006 4:42pm — Joseph Weisenthal

We already know there are some differences between the users of different search engines. Users of MSN and AOL, if you'll recall, are more inclined to click on ads than users of Yahoo and Google, which some people (not necessarily us, of course) might be a result of having a more gullible user base. Nick Carr claims to have found more interesting demographic information, from lists of the most popular search results put out by Google, Yahoo and AOL. According to Google's list, its userbase is a hip, web-savvy crowd, that searches for things like Wikipedia and Metacafe (of course, how web savvy can you really be if you need Google to find those sites?). Meanwhile, Yahoo users are more into pop culture, as popular searches apparently include Britney Spears and Shakira. Meanwhile, those old-timers still using AOL tend to look for more, well, boring things, like cars and maps. Unfortunately, it may not be quite so simple. These lists are obviously scrubbed of anything that might be raunchy, or suggest that people are searching for their competitors. As it is, the real #1 most searched term on AOL happens to be "Google", which we know from the company's massive data leak this summer. So rather than telling us much about the users of the different sites, it would seem that these lists are basically just a way to project a certain image onto its users. So what is it saying that AOL is claiming that its top search term is "weather"?

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10 Comments

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J, 19 Dec 2006 @ 5:53pm

long live google. Those lists obviously have to be filter before put up. I wonder what the top search on google is. I know what mine is...hot asian chicks
;-)
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J, 19 Dec 2006 @ 5:53pm

long live google. Those lists obviously have to be filter before put up. I wonder what the top search on google is. I know what mine is...hot asian chicks
;-)
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Jorge, 19 Dec 2006 @ 6:51pm

I always use google as a portal to websites i know the address of, like wikipedia. I don't knoqw why, its seems mor e convienent becauese I use it as my homepage, plus, I always misspell things.
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DKP, 19 Dec 2006 @ 8:21pm

Re:
agreeed
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erica, 19 Dec 2006 @ 9:25pm

Google plus
Google has a great idea with mis-spellings - offering the "did you mean.." with different (most times, but not all) correct spelling. Plus, I like the simplicity of Google's page that msn, aol, yahoo and many others have - just the search box... not all the news and other full page.. loads up much quicker. Those are the reasons I use google instead of the other search engines. Simplicity.

Also... considering most search engines are fed by google... either directly or indirectly... it says a lot about where most search engines get data. I do not see another search engine that feeds as many other search engines as google does

http://www.ihelpyou.com/search-engine-chart.html

http://www.bruceclay.com/searchenginecha rt.pdf
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Anonymous Coward, 20 Dec 2006 @ 1:16am

Jorge: bookmarks?

It says something that the top AOL search is google. If you need me to spell it out, then you must be one of the AOL users yourself.
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Sanguine Dream, 20 Dec 2006 @ 6:47am

It means

So what is it saying that AOL is claiming that its top search term is "weather"?

That after weeding out the "inappropriate" results like porn and links that may support competitiors weather was the top result that AOL's PR team felt was harmless.
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Solo, 20 Dec 2006 @ 3:28pm

"...things like Wikipedia and Metacafe (of course, how web savvy can you really be if you need Google to find those sites?)"

It's easier to type in the searchbox and find the wikipedia entry in the search result. Obviously, I could find my wikipedia bookmark, then type the search term, but that takes way too many clicks.

We should ask wikipedia how much traffic they get froma google search... I bet it's alot.
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|333173|3|_||3, 20 Dec 2006 @ 6:39pm

Wikipedia
Searching Wikipedia using google is more convienient than using its internal search system for some searches, which mena s that if the terms listed are actuallt the top words that make up the term, not the terms themselves, this is a very likely result. It would be interesting to see the top google searches rather than the fastest growing searches, a list which shouldn't be too hard for an algorythm to generate. using goolge to search for Yahoo and yahoo for google is just plain stupid.
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cher, 20 Dec 2006 @ 6:44pm

Google is really a great search engine. It makes the search easy. It gives different options to the user including the correct spelling of the keyword. Moreover the sponsered lists are kept aside so as to seperate it from the general ones. I've nothing to say about MSN, it is still under development process.
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