Stephen Gately tops Google search
The death of Boyzone singer Stephen Gately was the most searched for topic on Google’s UK site in 2009.
The company’s annual "zeitgeist", which analyses the firm’s search trends, also revealed that swine flu was the story that dominated UK news headlines.
It was closely followed by the rise of Britain’s Got Talent runner-up Susan Boyle and the death of Jade Goody.
Microsoft revealed that the death of Michael Jackson dominated its Bing search engine results during the year.
TOP GOOGLE UK SEARCHES 2009- 1. Facebook
- 2. BBC
- 3. YouTube
- 4. Hotmail
- 5. Games
- 6. eBay
- 7. News
- 8. Google
- 9. Yahoo
- 10. Bebo
Bing’s top trending topics also included Farrah Fawcett and Patrick Swayze, who both died in 2009.
Swine flu was also the third most searched for trend, beaten by social network Twitter in second place.
Much of the rest of the top ten is dominated by personalities including US reality TV stars Jon and Kate Gosselin.
The results from Bing are focused on US results, as the company has only recently launched a full UK version of the site.
Figures from Experian Hitwise suggest the search engine’s market share in the US is now around 9.5%.
TOP BING SEARCHES 2009- 1. Michael Jackson
- 2. Twitter
- 3. Swine flu
- 4. Stock market
- 5. Farrah Fawcett
- 6. Patrick Swayze
- 7. Cash for Clunkers
- 8. Jon and Kate Gosselin
- 9. Billy Mays
- 10. Jaycee Dugard
The figures put it well behind market leader Google which has around 70% of the US market.
In the UK, Google dominates the search market with around 90% of the market.
The search giant revealed that the most searched for terms in 2009 were dominated by web firms.
Searches included Hotmail, eBay, Yahoo and social network Bebo. The fastest rising search queries of the year included the BBC’s iPlayer and Bing.
Google also revealed the top trends for each year of the last decade.
Following the millennium the prophet Nostradamus dominated people’s searches.
This quickly changed to a mixture of celebrities and entertainment with the following years dominated by the movie Spiderman, Prince Charles, television series Big Brother, singer James Blunt and the death of Australian naturalist Steve Irwin.
2007 was the year of the iPhone whilst 2008 was dominated by people searching for the BBC’s catch-up TV service, the iPlayer. </p
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