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Opinion: When Osama bin Laden Leads Search Engine Requests
By Mike Banks Valentine, www.osOpinion.com
Tuesday September 18 06:30 PM EDT


I join those mourning lost loved ones in the terrorist attacks on the United States last Tuesday. I'm still struggling to make sense of it all. In taking the oft-repeated advice that we seek a return to business as usual, I've found no escape from terrorism in returning to my work.

As a search engine optimization and marketing specialist, I monitor and measure the most frequently searched terms at all the top search engines across the Web.

To those of us who make a living tweaking and maximizing search terms on our clients' Web sites, it is often clear from what people are searching for on the Internet, what people are thinking about around the U.S. and the world.

"Terrorism" now ranks at position No. 48 on the most frequently searched list I use.

Osama bin Laden (news - web sites) now ranks as the most searched term on the search engines, displacing Britney Spears and Pamela Anderson (news - web sites) as the most sought after name on the Web.

Nostradamus is running a close second after rumors circulated that he predicted the attack on America as the beginning of the end of the world.

Searching for bin Laden

Using Google (news - external web site) and searching for Osama bin Laden returned a category at the Open Directory Project where bin Laden is one of the subtopics with its own section.

As of this writing, the top link in that category leads to the University of Texas Middle East Information Center in Austin, Texas. It provides a 1993 interview with bin Laden by Robert Fisk of the Independent. With bin Laden being the most searched person on and off the Web and this page being the No. 1 result this week, it must be experiencing heavy traffic.

Search Substitutions

It is not always so obvious why top terms are being searched as it is this week. This demonstrates strongly that the Web is a valuable tool for research and reference when important issues arise in our society.

Next on the list come searches for "American flag" and "World Trade Center," displacing "jokes" and "MP3" from their usual high ranking in number of searches.

"New York City" and "Afghanistan (news - web sites)" now rank as the top searched locations, pushing "Toronto" and "Canada" off the list of the top 500 search terms. Folks are still interested in "Maps," but now it is "World map" and "Afghanistan map" that have replaced "Weather" and "Driving Directions" as top 50 search terms.

Taking the Lead

"American Red Cross (news - web sites)" has displaced "dictionary" as a top 20 search term and dictionary has dropped to 40th position. I'm sure lots of folks are looking up how to spell "Afghanistan" and of course "Nostradamus," so "dictionary" still ranks as a top search term.

Misspellings of words are very often found highly ranked in the most frequently searched terms, and this week that is still apparent, as the list contains 18 spelling variations on the name of Nostradamus.

News sites are very frequently sought by searchers but are usually found near the bottom of the 500 most frequently searched terms. This week all major U.S. television networks jumped into the top 250, where only CNN manages to be found routinely that high on the list.

This week CNN jumped to the top 10 with three positions. Position No. 7 with "CNN news," position No. 8 with "CNN" and No. 10 with "CNN.com."

While the commercial phrase "airline tickets" maintains a position around the 50th most frequently searched terms in a normal week, it is nowhere to be found in the top 500 this week. Neither are there many searches for products as there have been in recent weeks.

Looking for a Friend

We often seek comfort and enjoyment from animals and the terms "dogs," "cats" and "horses" usually find their way onto the most frequently searched terms list. Only "dogs" remain this week. Does that suggest they remain our best friend in difficult times too?

Our society can be viewed through this odd lens on a regular basis every week. You can see a side-by-side list of the top 300 search terms for the week of September 8th and 15th at: website101.com/Search_Engine_Positioning/top300terms.

I hope to see the term "World Peace" in that most frequently searched phrases, if not someday soon, at least some day.

Author's background: Mike Banks Valentine advocates a do-it-yourself approach to e-commerce. Valentine is the founder of WebSite101, and is a "guest expert" on Workz.com. He can be reached at [e-mail].

http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nf/20010918/tc/13595_1.html