Local Search Queries Still Predominate in 2011
Dubai, UAE: Google released its annual Zeitgeist report today, a look at 2011 through the collective eyes of the world on the web, offering a unique perspective on the year's major events and hottest trends based on searches conducted in the UAE, KSA, Egypt and around the globe.
This year's fastest rising searches show a sustained interest in local content, with Dubai, UAE, Emirates Etisalat and Dubizzle all in the top 25 for the UAE. In Egypt, phrases like Jan 25th Revolution, Tahrir square and Mubarak's trial were all predictably in the top ten, while hafiz (a Ministry of Labour website), Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya all ranked quite high in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. These local searches were interspersed with all the usual suspects that pop up around the globe, such as YouTube, Facebook and Twitter.
In terms of the fastest rising searches for people in Egypt, those related to the revolution were also near the top, with Mubarak, Wael Ghonim, Essam Sharaf and Hussein Salem all placing high in the people search ranking.
Everyday we get more than one billion searches on Google for information worldwide, and the UAE in particular is the third-fastest growing country in the MENA region in terms of search queries. Today we are very excited to share with internet users here in the the UAE Google Zeitgeist, which reveals the year-end results of the fastest rising search queries they have conducted throughout the year, said Mohammad Mourad, Google Gulf Regional Manager.
These lists and data visualizations are created using a combination of several tools that give insight into global, regional, and past and present search trends on an aggregated level. Google Insights for Search (http://www.google.com/insights/search), a publicly available tool that displays relative search volume across geographies, time periods and queries, informed many lists and graphs found on this year's Year-End Zeitgeist page.
Using the Insights for Search page, anyone can compile data on the most common searches, or else determine the relative popularity of certain search words in one country or between different countries. Insights for Search analyzes a portion of worldwide Google web searches to compute how many searches have been done for the terms entered, relative to the total number of searches done on Google over time. Google Insights for Search can never be used to identify individual users because it relies on anonymized, aggregated counts of how often certain search queries occur over a period. The patterns observed in the data are only meaningful across large populations of Google search users.
Google Zeitgeist tools rely on anonymized, aggregated counts of how often certain search queries occur over time. To see the worldwide results, please visit: www.googlezeitgeist.com after December 15th 12:30 GMT.
Fastest rising searches in the UAE:
1. Facebook
2. Cricket live
3. Dubizzle
4. Samsung
5. Al Jazeera
6. Translate
7. Dubai
8. UAE
9. Etisalat
10. Emirates
Top searches in the UAE:
1. Dubai
2. Facebook
3. Download
4. Youtube
5. UAE
6. Yahoo
7. Google
8. News
9. Movies
10. Games
Egypts Fastest Rising Queries
1. Jan 25th revolution
2. Tahrir square
3. Facebook
4. Jokes 2011
5. Al Youm Al Sabaa
6. Mubarak's trial
7. Twitter
8. Ministry of Finance
9. Google Gravity
10. The Forbidden Love series
KSAs Fastest Rising Queries
1. YouTube
2. Facebook
3. Hafez
4. Games
5. Twitter
6. Sponge Bob
7. Al Jazeera
8. Qalb Qalb (Heart heart) Song
9. Al Arabia
10. Al Tasleef Bank
Zeitgeist Explained
Google reveals the internet "Zeitgeist" (German for "the spirit of the times") through an exploration of the billions of search queries we receive each year. In addition to the Year-end Zeitgeist, which highlights the top trends of 2011, we also have several tools that give insight into global, regional, past and present search trends. Google Zeitgeist tools can never be used to identify individual users because we rely on anonymized, aggregated counts of how often certain search queries occur over time. These tools are available year-round for you to play with, explore, and learn from: www.googlezeitgeist.com note it wont go live until 12:30 GMT.
-Ends-
About Google Inc.
Googles innovative search technologies connect millions of people around the world with information every day. Founded in 1998 by Stanford Ph.D. students Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Google today is a top web property in all major global markets. Googles targeted advertising program provides businesses of all sizes with measurable results, while enhancing the overall web experience for users. Google is headquartered in Silicon Valley with offices throughout the Americas, Europe and Asia. For more information, visit www.google.com.
For information about Google in the Middle East, please visit our Official Google Arabia Blog.
http://google-arabia.blogspot.com/
For more information contact:
Ewan Abbasi
Ketchum-Raad Middle East
ewan.abbasi@ketchum-raad.com
Tel: 04-425-8991
Hind Rasheed
Google
hindr@google.com
Press Release 2011
