Yahoo Search Trends for 2008

Wassup, Yahoo!? Just to let you know, 2008 didn’t end yet.

So, on 1st of December I’ve read on the Official Yahoo Blog that they disclose the search trends for 2008. Nothing wrong with that, except Live (MSN) every search engine follows this route, but they disclose this information after the year passed. Other than they want to start from the pole position for the “2008 search trends” phrase, i see no other reason why did they publish this list. Or Yahoo simply wanted to buzz a bit the World…

Anyway, seemingly the list is quite correct. I don’t really understand though how Ms. or Mrs. Spears beat the new president of the US, but whatever. The infamous manga or game or anime or whatever it is, Naruto landed on the 7th position, beaten by RuneScape, a multiplayer role-playing game which landed is on the 5th position. Here’s the full list:

1. Britney Spears
2. WWE
3. Barack Obama
4. Miley Cyrus
5. RuneScape
6. Jessica Alba
7. Naruto
8. Lindsay Lohan
9. Angelina Jolie
10. American Idol

On the techie side of the world, people were searching the most in 2008 for… Digital Cameras. Yeah, seemingly we will have even more Reuters&tmark; photographer with Photoshopping skills, but we still have music lovers,too, as even after seven years after iPod appeared on the market, it’s still in the search trends of Yahoo!. Another member of the pole positions is another Apple product we didn’t hear about yet, probably is interesting if there are so many searches for the term “iPhone”. It’s on the list the infamous GPS manufacturer Garmin, as well, which has 56% market share in its industry. What’s up people?! Are you lost or something? You won’t find a way out of the financial crisis with a GPS!

And the full list for the top tech searches on Yahoo! is:

1. Digital Camera
2. iPhone
3. Wii
4. Xbox 360
5. PSP
6. BlackBerry
7. Skype
8. PS3
9. iPod
10. Garmin

By the way, economy. Gas, gold and oil prices were one of the most searched financial terms on Yahoo! in 2008. I don’t really understand how gold arrived on the 3rd place, probably people wanted to know how much a new engagement ring would cost, but it’s also possible that they only wanted to get an insight about how the US Fed manipulates the gold price to make the economy stand up. Also, I understand that the Wall Street is important for the economy… or must be if people like you and me who have less financial knowledge than E.T. searches for “Dow Jones” and “Stock Market”. Come on people, let’s admit it: if the finance gurus can’t give a good answer regarding what’s happening, how should we understand what’s happening?
On the other hand, spammers and affiliate marketers probably made a fortune this year because “Debt Consolidation” also arrived on the list of top search financial terms on Yahoo!, which is presented below:

1. IRS Stimulus Checks
2. Oil Prices
3. Gold Prices
4. Gas Prices
5. Dow Jones
6. Sallie Mae
7. Stock Market
8. AIG
9. Foreclosures
10. Debt Consolidaton

What effect these lists will have on the net? Certainly nothing. I think the search engines publish the search trends for specific years only to buzz a bit the world and nothing more. Building websites for these terms is nonetheless to say that is useless as the market is already saturated and the possibility of ranking high for these terms is almost impossible. It might come good for those who managed to hack the contextual ads, as most likely these phrases and words pay very well on per click basis.
It’s also good for the online publishers as now they have something to write about… in this case, me.
Regarding how accurate the list is, well, we’ll see when the other search engines will publish their own search trend.

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