By on December 10, 2008

Sarah Palin Tops 2008 Global Google Zeitgeist

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Google has released their 2008 year-end Zeitgeist (top searches for the year 2008), and Sarah Palin was the number one filtered search term for 2008. Where’s Obama? He holds the number one position in the US Zeitgeist, but didn’t even make the global top 5 fastest rising. A small part of me cried when I saw the Jonas Brothers had cracked the top 10. Here is the complete global top 10:

  1. sarah palin
  2. beijing 2008
  3. facebook login
  4. tuenti (Spanish social network)
  5. heath ledger
  6. obama
  7. nasza klasa (Polish social network)
  8. wer kennt wen (German social network)
  9. euro 2008
  10. jonas brothers

Perhaps most impressive, however, is the fact that four of the top ten terms were for specific social networking sites.

As always, Zeitgeist doesn’t actually represent the most popular search terms of the year. The terms on this list are the fastest rising search terms worldwide. As Google explains,

“Fastest rising” means we looked at the most popular searches conducted for 11 months of 2008 (we compile this list by early December) and ranked them based on how much their frequency increased compared to 2007.

For the first time, Google’s Zeitgeist includes search data for 35 countries. In addition to the overall top 10 search queries, users will be able to find search data on images, books, translate and news searches.


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11 comments on “Sarah Palin Tops 2008 Global Google Zeitgeist”

  1. Katie Says:

    December 10th, 2008 at 4:13 pm

    Of course Sarah is the number 1 google search this year!! She is such an inspiration! Every day I look at my Sarah Palin calendar (which i LOVE by the way, makes a great gift too, available on amazon) and my motivation to do goo on Sarah’s behalf is renewed! I truly believe she is the future of America!!! God bless!

  2. drivelocity Says:

    December 10th, 2008 at 5:49 pm

    The only good I’d do on Sarah Palin’s behalf is donate to Planned Parenthood ;)

    drivelocity’s last blog post..Top Commentators Plugin

  3. Matt Helphrey Says:

    December 10th, 2008 at 7:28 pm

    I cant figure out for the life of me why Palin would be the #1 search term. Hmmm I guess people are trying to tune in to see what crazy thing she is going to say or do next.

    Matt Helphrey’s last blog post..The Money Spot is Above the Fold

  4. Saad Kamal Says:

    December 10th, 2008 at 10:53 pm

    I myself searched for Sarah Palin a few times because I have never heard of her before the election.

    Saad Kamal’s last blog post..Google Toolbar PageRank Update Coming Soon

  5. JT Says:

    December 11th, 2008 at 1:43 am

    One thing I know, I’ve never search her name on Google.

    JT’s last blog post..Zen and PPC campaigns

  6. Kenney and Kim Says:

    December 11th, 2008 at 7:55 am

    What I think is funny is that “facebook login” made the top 10. lol. That’s funny. And says a lot about facebook. I mean it came in right behind the Olympics, interesting.

  7. drivelocity Says:

    December 11th, 2008 at 12:21 pm

    I don’t remember where I read it, but another blog posted about this topic and said that they failed to mention the other adult themed keywords associated with her name….. So if they included every phrase that included her name, based on some pretty crude comments I’d seen throughout the election, I could believe she’d be first.

    drivelocity’s last blog post..Top Commentators Plugin

  8. Richard V. Burckhardt Says:

    December 11th, 2008 at 3:39 pm

    Hey, give Sarah a break! After all, everyone was searching for turkeys at Thanksgiving!

    Richard V. Burckhardt’s last blog post..Social Media Tactics

  9. SeoBrain Says:

    December 11th, 2008 at 11:03 pm

    Sorry i don’t heard about facebook login, is any way to entering facebook without login? or its just API for authoring acces to facebook?

  10. Utah SEO Pro Says:

    December 12th, 2008 at 12:48 pm

    Funny thing is that most of those queries where to poke fun at her, not to learn about her.

    Utah SEO Pro’s last blog post..SEO and Usability – SES Chicago 2008 Presentation

  11. AIDS Drugs Says:

    December 21st, 2008 at 3:45 pm

    Thats really frightening I wonder where a lot of the non US searches were coming from in terms of demographic.