Google's Top 10 Searches for 2006

Google's list of top 10 searches in 2006 includes usual suspects like myspace, wikipedia, but also some unusual terms like "bebo". The list came in for some criticism for including fairly unlikely terms (for example, “Bebo” at the top of the list). The raised eyeborws forced Google to come out with a clarification on how the list is complied and what it represents. Google calls its list of top searches as “Zeitgeist” - the spirit of time. The list, according to Google, is not just a mechanical compilation of the most frequently-searched terms, it rather represents what sorts of things were top of mind and best represented the passing year. Google says in its clarification:

"The Zeitgeist is "the spirit of time." This is why … we do not simply retrieve the most frequently-searched terms for the period -- the truth is, they don't change that much from year to year. …Instead, we looked for those searches that were very popular in 2006 but were not as popular in 2005 -- the explosive queries, the topics that everyone obsessed over. To come up with this list, we looked at several thousand of 2006's most popular searches, and ranked them based on how much their popularity increased compared to 2005. … We also gave a bit higher score to searches with more traffic."

Here is the top 10 list :

1. bebo
2. myspace
3. world cup
4. metacafe
5. radioblog
6. wikipedia
7. video
8. rebelde
9. mininova
10. wiki

The Top 10 news search items published by Google are as below.

1. paris hilton

2. orlando bloom

3. cancer

4. podcasting

5. hurricane katrina

6. bankruptcy

7. martina hingis

8. autism

9. 2006 nfl draft

10. celebrity big brother 2006