Yahoo Reveals Top 10 Searches of 2011



Yahoo today announced the 10th anniversary edition of their Year in Review.  The top 10 searched terms are a general barometer of the year, giving insight into the biggest products, news stories, and celebrities.  Yahoo boasts about 700 million unique monthly users, so these results do provide a pretty good overview of the hot topics of the year.  Yahoo has made their Year in Review available “in 17 versions including Argentina, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Italy, Korea, Mexico, Philippines, Spain, Taiwan, United Kingdom, and United States”

Surprisingly, at least to me, was that the most searched for term of 2011 wasn’t a celebrity or a news story, but a tech item – the iPhone.  It was the first physical object to garner the number one spot since the Playstation 2 did in 2002.  Britney Spears is the only multi-time winner, being number one in 2005, 2006, 2007, and 2008.  The Apple phone was the only non-news, non-person to to make the top ten list.  Beyond it, you will find a mix of names, mostly celebrities along with a couple from news stories.  Only one event made this year’s list – the Japan earthquake.

Here are top ten most searched for terms of 20, based on Yahoo’s data.

  1. iPhone
  2. Casey Anthony
  3. Kim Kardashian
  4. Katy Perry
  5. Jennifer Lopez
  6. Lindsay Lohan
  7. American Idol
  8. Jennifer Aniston
  9. Japan earthquake
  10. Osama bin Laden

You can get a lot more data and lots of different lists by visiting the Yahoo Year in Review.