Ghosts, goblins and haunting Halloween search trends

Every October, it seems like every third question you hear is “What are you going to dress up as for Halloween?” We see this question reflected annually in Google searches, as millions of people turn to the Internet to help them prepare for this creepy-crawliest of holidays. Searches for “costume” have steadily risen since early August, while people look for [ideas] and then [stores] to help them carry out their vision. We’re taking our annual peek at what Halloween fun has people going to Google for inspiration.

Lady Gaga may have topped the charts of costume searches last year, but there’s a new girl in town in 2010: Snooki, one of MTV’s “Jersey Shore” stars. [snooki] topped the list of fastest rising costume searches:

Jersey Shore fans seem interested in how to get Snooki’s hair just right—[snooki wig] and [snooki costume wig] are popular related searches. People from Pennsylvania were most likely to search for [snooki costume] in October, followed—fittingly—by folks from New Jersey. Not to be left out, however, Snooki’s costars Pauly D and The Situation are also showing up as popular Halloween ideas in the past few months.

[neytiri] tops the list of related searches for [avatar costume], as people try to figure out the complexities of becoming a blue resident of another planet. Gaga folks are trying to mimic an equally tough outfit: the singer’s famous meat dress. Searches for “meat costume” have grown more than 5,000% since July. We’ve also seen rising searches for [glee cheerios costume], [justin bieber costume], [katy perry costume], [kenny powers costume] and more.

Just in the last week, we’ve seen many other Halloween-related searches on Google. On today’s Hot Trends list, for example, we’ve seen rising interest in things like [monster mash song] and [halloween sounds]. Here’s more from the Google Beat’s All Hallows Eve special:



Turning from the U.S. to other countries, we see similar costume searches, minus our favorite reality TV stars: in Canada, Australia, Ireland and the U.K., Avatar and Lady Gaga come out on top. “Alice in Wonderland” characters are popular everywhere, but only in Australia are people looking to turn themselves into the [queen of hearts]. And the U.K. distinguishes itself with searches for good old-fashioned Halloween standbys [skeleton] and [zombie]. Brits are also looking to transform themselves into [mario] and [buzz lightyear].

One of my favorite things about Halloween at Google is all the Googlers’ children who visit campus with their parents for a special kiddie celebration. Their costumes are always creative and more importantly, adorable. That seems to be universal across the U.S.—look at the fastest rising searches related to [baby costume] in 2010:

We also saw searches for [baby lobster costume], [baby yoda costume], [baby ladybug]. [baby bat] and [baby lion]. (And [baby spice], but that’s neither here nor there.) Costumes for kids aren’t too far off from adult costumes, with Avatar and Gaga atop the heap, however, you might see a lot of [werewolf kids] trick-or-treating this weekend, and the occasional [strawberry shortcake].

Last but not least, we can’t leave our canine friends out of the fun. This year, it seems people are taking inspiration from the movies to turn their pups into [slinky dog]s—the term has gone up 350%. People also seem to like to make their dogs another beast for the day, whether a [pig dog] or a [shark dog], or into a food item in a [taco dog costume] or the classic [hot dog costume]. Finally, you might see some dogs matching babies in your neighborhood, as we’ve seen growing interest in [lobster dog costume] and [yoda dog costume], although the latter is not rising as fast as [ewok dog costume].

We're celebrating "Googleween" today, and as always, Googlers and their kids are dressing to the nines in costumes of all kinds:

One thing’s for sure—with all these ideas, there’s no excuse not to dress up! So whether you’re going as Gaga or Yoda this weekend—or something we couldn’t even dream of—we hope you have a happy Halloween.

Update 4:06PM: Added slideshow.

Posted by Emily Wood, Google Blog Editor

Searching your way to the ballot box

With less than a week left until the U.S. 2010 midterm elections, interest is heating up around the country—in polling places, close races and hot political issues. We thought we’d peek into the search data to see what we could find about what kinds of info people are looking for as they get ready to go to the ballot box next Tuesday. We used a combination of Insights for Search and internal tools to dig up this data, and all searches studied are anonymous.

Over the past few months, we’ve seen rising searches for things like [voter registration], [early voting] and [absentee voting] as people prepare for Election Day. People are also looking for information on [polls] (check out our elections rating site to compare expert predictions). What are the issues occupying people’s mind as they choose who to vote for? Looking at the most popular searches on Google News in October, the issues that stand out are the economy (we continue to see many searches for terms like [unemployment] and [foreclosures]), as well as immigration and health care.

At our headquarters in California, we’re of course paying close attention to two high profile races in this state: the Senate race between Carly Fiorina and incumbent Barbara Boxer, and the governor’s race between Meg Whitman and Jerry Brown. Looking the gubernatorial candidates, Brown has been leading in the polls recently, but in the search race, Whitman has the edge, with more than 50% more search volume in 2010 than Brown. Fittingly, Sacramentans are more likely to search for both Whitman and Brown, followed by Angelenos and then San Franciscans. Popular related searches show people looking for information about polling data as well as the candidate debates: we saw searches spike for both candidates on September 29 and October 13, two days that followed debates. There was also a spike around the time of the primary election on June 8, as well as on October 8, when a controversial comment by an aide of Brown’s hit newsstands.

We also wanted to find out what the big issues people were interested in about each candidate. Naturally, we saw a lot of searches for things like [meg whitman bio] or [jerry brown wikipedia], as well as [meg whitman ad] or [jerry brown platform] and vice versa. Terms more specifically related to Meg Whitman include [housekeeper] and [immigration]—reflecting interest in reports that Whitman had employed an undocumented worker as her housekeeper, and corresponding interest in the candidate’s views on immigration and immigration reform. People also want to know about her history at [ebay] and about her family (with the terms [husband] and [children] showing up in searches related to Whitman). But this being California, people are also looking for information about how Whitman would approach the problem of the state’s budget and economy—after immigration, the next issue we saw turn up in terms related to Whitman was [spending]. Interestingly, immigration was also the number one issue in searches related to Jerry Brown. People also seem to be looking for information about Brown’s previous term as governor, and, as with Whitman, we’re seeing searches for information about his [wife].

There’s also growing interest in one of the propositions on California’s ballot this year: Proposition 19, which would legalize and allow regulation of certain marijuana activities. Even though Prop 19 is a state initiative, its implications have people across the country searching for information about it:


Moving across the country, another state that’s grabbed headlines during this primary season is Delaware. Prior to her upset win in the Republican primary against former governor Mike Castle in September, searches for Senate candidate Christine O’Donnell were minimal—even though she’d been in the running since March. Since then, however, she’s been a subject of conversations across the country and searches for her name have consequently risen as well.


Searchers looked for information on a comment O’Donnell made on Bill Maher’s show in 1999 about [witchcraft]—it’s one of the top terms related to searches for O’Donnell. People also are interested in an [snl] spoof of O’Donnell earlier this month. O’Donnell is clearly outmatching her Democrat opponent Chris Coons in search, but only time will tell how the votes play out.

The potential shift in power in the House and Senate following these elections has people closely watching a handful of races to see which party comes out on top. We took a look at the Insights for Search graphs for a handful of close races and races that are considered influential. Take a look at the links below to see more, and plug in the names and other states of other candidates to try it out for yourself:

• Marco Rubio, Charlie Crist and Kendrick Meek (Florida Senate race—note the big spikes in April, when Charlie Crist announced he was running as an Independent)
• Harry Reid and Sharron Angle (Nevada Senate race)
• Joe Sestak and Pat Toomey (Pennsylvania Senate race)

Of course, no discussion of this election season would be complete without a look at the Tea Party. The grassroots movement has captured the nation’s attention, and has people looking for information about the history of the original Boston Tea Party and related events, like the [boston massacre] and the [tea act], in addition to the more expected searches for information on [tea party rally] or [tea party platform] and figures like [sarah palin] and [glenn beck].

And finally, we’ve also seen some popular political rallies in the past few months. Glenn Beck’s Restoring Honor Rally in Washington, D.C. in late August kicked things off, and inspired Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart to host their own events—the March to Keep Fear Alive and the Rally to Restore Sanity, respectively—both of which are taking place this coming Saturday in D.C. Searches related to all of these rallies, especially Stewart’s, have seen huge increases in volume—above 5000%.


We’ll be back soon with more search trends and other information about the mid-term elections. In the meantime, don’t forget to vote!

Posted by Emily Wood, Google Blog Editor

The most World Cup-crazy countries

Last weekend, Spain won the 2010 World Cup. For the month leading up to the final, Googlers joined the world in cheering for their favorite teams. Around our campus, games were watched on computer screens and on cafe video screens. Code went unwritten. Emails went unanswered.

Throughout the world, real life also slowed during World Cup matches. Which teams had the most loyal fans? Which game captured the attention of world the most? To answer these questions, we looked at counts of queries using Google. People search using Google day and night—except for football fans when a game is on.

These graphs show the volume of Google queries for some of the World Cup matches:

On June 15, as Brazil played its first game against North Korea, the volume of queries from Brazil, shown using a red line, plummeted when the match began, spiked during halftime, fell again and then quickly rose after the match finished.

Queries from Spain during its June 25 game against Chile also decreased during the game, except during halftime. After some post-game querying, Spaniards went to sleep and queries dropped again.

To measure which country has the most loyal fans, we computed the proportional drop in queries during each of its team’s matches compared with normal query volume. Brazil topped the charts with queries from that country dropping by half during its football games. Football powerhouse and third-place winner Germany came in second, followed by the Netherlands and South Korea.

In fourth place, South Koreans were remarkably loyal even though some games began at 3:30am Seoul time. Japan, Australia and New Zealand, also affected by time-zone differences, expressed much less interest. A few countries searched more, not less. But only Honduras and North Korea increased significantly.

During the knockout rounds, each match’s losing team is eliminated from the tournament. As fewer and fewer teams remain, we expected increased worldwide interest in each remaining game. Unsurprisingly, worldwide queries slowed the most during the final game between the Netherlands and Spain, but the round-of-16 Germany v. England game had the second largest query decrease. Semi-finals and quarter-finals were all popular except for semi-final Uruguay v. Netherlands, during which queries actually increased.

In Latin American countries, search volume dropped more steeply leading into and out of matches while, in Europe, searches ramped down and up more gradually. Of course, for games that went into extra time and penalty shootouts the drops deepened the longer the match went on, including Paraguay v. Japan, Netherlands v. Spain, and Uruguay v. Ghana as seen here:

Finally, no blog post about the World Cup would be complete without a look at what did drive people to search—after the final match, of course. Although he won neither the Golden Boot (for the most World Cup goals) nor the Golden Ball (for best player) last weekend, Spain’s David Villa is winning in search compared to the recipients of those two honors—Germany’s Thomas Müller and Uruguay’s Diego Forlán—and Dutch midfielder Wesley Sneijder. All of these men competed for the Golden Boot with five goals apiece.

Similar to when Carlos Puyol headed in the single goal that put Spain in the final, people flocked to the web to search for information on Andres Iniesta, the “quiet man” who scored the one goal that led his country to its first World Cup championships. They were also interested in Dani Jarque, a Spanish footballer who died last fall and whose name was emblazoned on Iniesta’s undershirt, which he displayed after his goal. And after the match, searches for keeper Iker Casillas skyrocketed to a higher peak than any other popular footballer—including household names like Ronaldo, Villa and Messi—reached during the Cup. Sometimes, it seems, goalies get the last word.

We hope you enjoyed our series of posts on World Cup search trends and we’ll see you in Brazil in 2014!

Posted by Jeffrey D. Oldham, Software Engineer and Robert Snedegar, Technical Solutions Engineer

World Cup search trends: the final countdown

In the past two weeks of World Cup action, 16 teams have been narrowed down to just two—Spain and the Netherlands—who will face off in the World Cup final tomorrow. For both countries, there are high stakes: not only are the two sides contending for the title of best football team in the world, but this will be the first-ever Cup win for either team and Spain is in the finals for the first time. We took another look at the search data to see what people have been interested in during the round of 16, quarterfinals and semifinals.

Some matches, of course, were more interesting to people than others—whether they were eagerly anticipated or just more nail-biting during play. Brazil, chosen as the champion in many an office pool, lost to the Netherlands in a quarterfinal upset. Perhaps it’s indicative of people’s disappointment in that match that Felipe Melo, who gave up an own goal and then was shown a red card in the 73rd minute with his country down 2-1, was more searched-for than Robinho, who made Brazil’s one goal in the match. Another favored South American team, Argentina, also lost in the quarterfinals, to Germany. It’s interesting to note that searches for that team’s two biggest names, Lionel Messi and coach Diego Maradona, have spiked in popularity with each match—and the player was usually more interesting to people than the coach. But over time—and after Messi’s skills failed to carry his team to the semis—Maradona overtook Messi in search volume. Clearly, his fate as Argentina coach in the future is more up for debate than Messi’s career (after all, the latter has a comfy year-round spot on FC Barcelona).

Controversy continued to be a major driver of search traffic. On June 27, Argentina’s first goal in their victorious match against Mexico, a Carlos Tévez header, was widely considered offsides (and therefore should have been disallowed). That same day, Germany beat England 4-1, although many say it should have been 4-2 thanks to a Frank Lampard goal that just barely made it into the net but wasn’t counted. Both of these calls brought the issue of instant replay to the forefront in an already controversial tournament.

Perhaps the most surprisingly exciting game was the quarterfinal match between Uruguay and Ghana. Ghana had several shots on goal in the last minutes of extra time, with the game tied 1-1. Uruguay’s Luis Suárez saved his team from a near-certain loss with a handball that earned him a red card (and increased search traffic). Uruguay went on to win in penalty kicks, and became the only South American country to make the semifinals. Searches for [penalty kick] were at their highest on the day of this game—they had also spiked on June 26, when USA’s Landon Donovan scored on a penalty kick against Ghana, and on June 29, the day of another quarterfinal match (between Japan and Paraguay) that also ended in penalty kicks.

Many fans, eager for semifinal predictions, turned to an unlikely source: a “psychic” octopus in a German zoo. Paul the octopus had successfully predicted the winner of each of his home country’s matches by selecting a tasty mussel from either side of a box marked by both teams’ flags. The day before Germany faced Spain in the semifinals, he chose the Spanish mussel—and searches for [octopus] skyrocketed. (Incidentally, he has picked Spain to win against the Netherlands on Sunday.) Searches were also high for Carles Puyol, the Spanish defender whose header won the match against Germany. Historically, he’s been one of the least searched-for Spaniards—and he continues to be behind stars like David Villa and Fernando Torres—but search volume for him in July is already more than five times as high as in June.

Villa still dominates search traffic amongst the Spanish players, and no wonder: he’s scored five of his team’s seven goals in the tournament and is a contender for the Golden Boot. Searches for Dutch players are a bit more distributed than for Spanish ones. Arjen Robben, who started the tournament in the spotlight in part due to injury, still has the most search volume overall, but Wesley Sneijder has caught up as the tournament’s gone on. Searches for him were higher than for Robben on June 19, when he scored his first goal in the tournament against Japan, and on July 2, when he scored both goals in the match against favored Brazil. Now Sneijder, like Villa, has five goals in six matches and is a front-runner for the Golden Boot. Clearly he’s been a surprise factor in this World Cup for many, including searchers!

For me—well, I’ve got cava in my fridge and my fingers are crossed for Paul’s prediction to come true. But whomever you’re rooting for, have fun watching La Furia Roja and the Oranje fight for the Cup on Sunday!

Posted by Emily Wood, Editor, Google blog team

The search for 16

With the group round of the World Cup coming to a close and the round of 16 under way, it’s the perfect time to see what’s piqued searchers’ interest since our pre-tournament search trends kick-off.

Understandably, searches for [world cup standings] climbed steadily during the first week of play as fans around the globe watched the various teams jockey within their groups to qualify for the next round. Upsets in the group round have been particularly effective at driving increased search volume. Switzerland’s win over Spain on June 16 (one of the tournament’s earliest upsets) drove its share of search traffic, and New Zealand’s unexpectedly good performance against Italy, the 2006 tournament champion, inspired people to look for information about the “All Whites” (the Kiwi team’s nickname). Until England’s keeper let in a “soft” goal in the game against the U.S., [striker] was a more popular term than [fullback], [goalkeeper] or [midfielder]—but since then, searches for [goalkeeper] have largely outpaced the other positions. Searches for [england keeper] and [rob green] also spiked on the day of that game.

One of the rising—and controversial—stars of the World Cup’s initial days was the ubiquitous vuvuzela, which, at its peak on June 15, nearly overtook searches for [waka waka], the official song of the 2010 World Cup sung by Shakira. Viewers—and listeners—around the world searched for information about the South African horn, although after the initial spike it seems people have become accustomed to this unofficial match soundtrack, or perhaps purchased their own (listen for the German fans in the round of 16!).

But the vuvuzela is certainly not the only aspect of this year’s World Cup under scrutiny. Controversies have cropped up throughout the tournament, and a rise in search volume was never far behind. Interest in the much-debated 2010 World Cup ball, or [jabulani], has remained high throughout the first two weeks, and searches for [world cup referees] reflect the growing awareness that an official’s decision can make or break the fate of a team. Search volume for this topic peaked on June 18, the day a potentially tie-breaking U.S. goal against Slovenia was disallowed by a controversial offsides call. Searches for [offsides] also spiked on June 18, as well as on June 11 following an offsides call during the opening game between Mexico and South Africa, and June 23 after a call in the U.S. game against Algeria. Among English-speaking countries, most of these searches came from the U.S., a country relatively less familiar with “the beautiful game.”

Participating teams and individual players have also done their part to spark controversy. The French team has been in the spotlight for a variety of reasons: qualification for the tournament in a win over Ireland credited to a Thierry Henry handball, refusal to train after Nicolas Anelka was sent home for insulting the team’s coach (searches for [anelka] spiked following his departure), and their eventual elimination from the tournament. In another newsworthy twist, searches for Algerian player Rafik Saifi have skyrocketed in the last days after his altercation with an Algerian journalist.

As the stakes climb even higher in the elimination rounds, we’re all on the look-out for more exciting (and controversial) moments and emerging stars. So stay tuned—we’ll be back with more search trends as the World Cup action continues.

Posted by Emily Wood, Editor, Google Blog team

Kicking around search trends for the World Cup

If you’re a certain type of sports fan, you’ve been waiting four years to get to June 11, 2010—the kick-off of the World Cup and 30 days of football (soccer to some of us) madness, with 64 matches played by 32 teams from around the world.

As we’ve done before, we took a look at the search data using tools like Google Insights for Search—as well as some internal resources—to see what we could uncover about the upcoming tournament and its global audience. Search patterns can truly reflect the “pulse” of the world, and we found that the pulse of World Cup fever is beating strong as millions of fans hold tight to the hope that their team will make history as the 2010 champion.

It’s often said that football is a global sport, and that’s certainly true in search. Searches for [world cup 2010], [copa mundial] and [월드 컵] are all spiking, although overall World Cup buzz seems to be off to a slower start in 2010 than in the months leading up to the 2006 tournament, based on global trends for queries like [world cup] and [fifa world cup]. India is the #1 country searching for [fifa world cup schedule], [fifa 2010 schedule] and similar queries. And as the match-up between anglophone rivals England and USA approaches, searches for [england world cup] continue to far surpass interest in [usa world cup].

Most of us will be watching the matches on TV in pubs and living rooms, but a few lucky spectators will get to watch in person in South Africa. Searches for [world cup tickets] peaked in mid-April, and have since declined. But whether home or abroad, we’re all searching for the best way to show support for our team. Searches for [world cup decoration] have risen, and a glimpse at the Dutch shows queries for [oranje versiering] (“orange decoration”; orange is the Netherland’s national color) and [orange] have risen sharply for the last three months, as they have in 2006 and 2008 for the World Cup and European Cup.

All eyes—and hopes—are now hanging on the football stars who will be dribbling, passing and scoring for their countries. In search, the winning player is already clear: Cristiano Ronaldo, the Portuguese team captain and talented forward.



But many others are also being closely watched, especially the handful of players who have been injured in the days leading up to the start of the tournament. Queries on the Ivory Coast’s [drogba], England’s [rooney], Germany’s [ballack] and Italy's [pirlo] have all spiked in this fashion. And the Netherlands is apparently far more concerned about Arjen Robben's injury than their national elections. In the days leading up to the June 9 elections, between four and five times as many searches were done for [robben] than either of the two popular candidates [wilders] or [balkenende].

We’ll be back throughout the next month to highlight more search trends from the World Cup. In the meantime, you can explore trends on your own using Google Trends and Google Insights for Search, or see what topics other fans are discussing with the "Updates" mode and other search tools in the left panel of your Google search results page.

Posted by Jaime Forman-Lau, Consumer Operations Strategist

Brits search for a leader

Today, leaders of the three largest British parties took part in the U.K’s first live televised debate in the run up to the May 6 general election. Alastair Stewart of ITN hosted Prime Minister Gordon Brown of the Labour Party, Conservative Party leader David Cameron and Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg as they discussed domestic affairs before a Manchester T.V. studio audience.

Nick Clegg, his Liberal Democrat Party, and its manifesto generated many queries as people searched for Lib Dems and Liberal Democrat manifesto 2010. Searches for David Cameron and the Conservatives beat out the well-known incumbent Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Labour, but the two parties’ manifestos generated about the same number of searches.

Many Brits sought to watch the debate, searching for ITV election debate and live political debate, while others sought real-time polling information with queries such as debate polls, leaders debate poll and who is winning the debate.

Gordon Brown told David Cameron, “I'm grateful, by the way, David, for you putting up these posters about me and about crime and about everything else. You know, there's no newspaper editor done as much for me in the last two years, because my face is smiling on these posters, and I'm very grateful to you and Lord Ashcroft for funding that”, generating queries for Gordon Brown poster and Lord Ashcroft. David Cameron’s statement, “We’re going to get rid of some of these quangos” sent users scurrying to determine what a quango is. Nick Clegg’s repeated railing against renewing the Trident missile and David Cameron’s repeated railing against the jobs tax, a one percent increase in National Insurance contributions, were the other issues generating queries. Overwhelming these debate-related queries was the eruption of Iceland’s Eyjafjallajökull volcano and the closure of British air space.


During the three weeks, follow the run-up to the May 6 British general election by watching debate highlights on YouTube and searching web trends using Google Insights for Search.

Posted by Jeffrey D. Oldham, Software Engineer

The 2010 tax season story, as told by Google search

Today, April 15, is the due date for federal tax returns in the U.S. Now that everyone’s submitted their taxes in on time (we hope!) we wanted to take a look back at the last few months and tell the story of this year’s tax season through Google search.

Spoiler alert — we’re starting our tax season search story at the end. As the filing deadline has approached over the last few days and weeks, we’ve seen a flurry of search interest about taxes and tax related topics. Compared to search volume from the final week of the 2009 tax season, we’ve seen significant increases in searches for terms like [file taxes] and [tax filing extension]. As of late last week, searches for [file taxes] had increased by 16% from last year. This spike in search interest leading up to April 15 prolongs a pattern of search trends that we’ve seen for the last several years; from 2006 to 2009, searches for [file taxes] rose an average of more than 51% between April 8 and April 15.

Perhaps less expected than this final peak is the sizable spike in search volume that we see several months before April 15, around the time that W-2 forms become available. This occurs in early February and, as you can see below, there’s a noticeable increase in searches such as [get W2 form] that are related to the beginning of the tax-filing.

In general, tax season search trends look pretty similar each year, but if we dive deeper, there are lots of mini-trends to explore, often triggered by unforeseen and/or unique world events. For example, we saw a flurry of search interest following the passage of the healthcare reform bill in March. The sharp increase in searches for terms like [taxes healthcare] and [healthcare tax increase] likely reflected curiosity about the implications of the new law on tax filings.

We saw a similar trend following the tragic earthquake in Haiti. The outpouring of support for victims in Haiti generated increased interest in the details of charitable donations as they related to taxes; searches queries like [haiti donation tax] were noticeably high in January.

Unfortunately, the implications of heightened unemployment levels were also top of mind this year, and we saw an interest in the effects of joblessness on tax payments and tax filing. Queries like [unemployed taxes] and [unemployment tax refund] were noticeably elevated compared to 2009 search volume, in particular around the season’s first spike.


Hopefully, we’ve shed some light on what your fellow taxpayers were interested in over the course of tax season and, via search trends, provided a sense of the different types of events that might affect taxes and tax filing. Until next year!

Posted by Jon Kaplan, Director, Financial Services

And the searches go to...

The Oscars®: glitz, glamor, gossip, gold statuettes, much fanfare — and for many fans, Google search is increasingly a part of watching this live TV experience. Before and during the Academy Awards® broadcast in the U.S., we saw related queries on Google dominating the hot searches list on Google Trends. People searched for the TV schedule, printable ballots for voting on favorites, streaming video sites, nominee and film information, celebrity chatter and whatever else caught your attention. Here's a snapshot:

Fashion
Everyone knows the red carpet is all about the gowns. So which actresses made the best (or worst!) dressed list in search? Zoe Saldana's purple Givenchy haute couture gown won the day in searches, with just a few more queries than runner up Miley Cyrus, who walked down the carpet in one of Jenny Packham's finest. Both beat searches for Sandra Bullock's dress (Marchesa) by large margins. Sarah Jessica Parker, always the fashionista, ranked a distant fourth in Chanel. Certain designers were also popular in search, thanks to the stars who wore (and name-dropped) them. Elie Saab (worn by Anna Kendrick), Armani Prive (Amanda Seyfried, Jennifer Lopez) and Marchesa (Sandra Bullock, Vera Farmiga) were all rising trends.

Winners
Throughout the night Oscar®-related searches rose and fell as nominations were introduced and winners announced. Avatar had the most searches before the ceremony, but as The Hurt Locker received more awards, searches for that film exceeded all others and peaked when it won Best Picture. Precious also had a good run throughout the night. Its peak matched that of "Avatar" during the ceremony:


The awards for best actor, best actress and best director are some of the most-anticipated in the program. There was a considerable amount of buzz about Jeff Bridges, Sandra Bullock and Kathryn Bigelow before last night, and considerable spikes in search volume when they each won. Here's a look at a few of the star searches last night:


Finally, the evening wasn't all about big wins. The awards help expose more obscure films — shorts, documentaries and foreign-language — to a much larger audience. Searches for these titles typically went up tenfold during the evening, and if they took home a gold statue, search volume spiked as much as 100 times higher. Music by Prudence, Logorama, Food, Inc., The Cove and The Secrets in their Eyes all experienced an exponential explosion of queries.

Gossip and memorable moments
People are always eager for more information about the Hollywood stars — personal stats like age, height, family and dating status. During this year’s Oscar® ceremonies, Kathryn Bigelow's height and Miley Cyrus's mother's tattoos were hot topics. Whose girlfriend was most searched for? Easy. George Clooney's (Elisabetta Canalis).

So what were the most memorable moments of the broadcast? When George Clooney wandered off the red carpet to greet the crowd, queries on [clooney] shot through the roof. Ben Stiller’s appearance as a Na'vi was another draw, and queries on him were high during his spoof. Molly Ringwald and Matthew Broderick’s John Hughes tribute triggered a flood of nostalgia; Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller's Day Off and Home Alone all saw huge query spikes as well. During the memorial portion of the show, queries surged for those in the industry who passed away in the last year, including Ron Silver, Natasha Richardson, Patrick Swayze and Brittany Murphy. On a lighter note, Sandra Bullock set off a frenetic amount of searches when she mentioned a Meryl Streep kiss in her acceptance speech.

As we've seen in presidential debates, unusual words also generate great interest. The Oscars led to spikes in searches for [catharsis] (from Robert Downey Jr.'s presentation with Tina Fey) and [spooning] (Colin Farrell talking about Jeremy Renner).

We hope you enjoyed the evening, and want to thank everyone for turning to Google search to see the latest. And our parents deserve huge thanks, and our agent... oh, they're telling me to wrap it up...!

Posted by Qing Wu, Senior Economics Analyst

2010 Super Bowl: Some search touchdowns

While 106 American football players sought yardage in the 2010 Super Bowl, millions of people sought information related to the big game from Google search. We looked at some game-day search trends and data* to see what football fans were searching for this year.

Most searched-for team
To the victor of this year's big game went the search spoils: The New Orleans Saints captured both the NFL championship and the lion's share of Super Bowl team searches in 2010.

Most searched-for player
For leading the New Orleans Saints to their 31–17 win over the Indianapolis Colts — with 288 yards, two touchdowns and 32 of 39 passes completed — quarterback Drew Brees won the Most Valuable Player award. But Peyton Manning earned the status of the Super Bowl's most searched-for player, beating out some tough competition and followed by Drew Brees, Reggie Bush, Hank Baskett and Scott Fujita.

Many fans of Reggie Bush also expressed interest in his girlfriend Kim Kardashian; searches for her name, both on its own and linked with Reggie Bush's, spiked significantly during the game. Additionally, search volume for football great Walter Payton — after whom the Walter Payton Man of the Year Award was named — was as high as that for some of the game's top five most searched-for players.

Most searched-for coach
Behind every team is a great coach, and behind every coach is an engaged online community. This year, Sean Payton, who has coached the New Orleans Saints since 2006, was the most searched-for team leader.

Most searched-for party planning terms
Die-hard football fans and casual shindig hosts alike look forward to game day for its party planning possibilities. This year, people went online to find all the information they needed to watch the game and to make sure they were well-fed during the same. Some top rising recipe searches on game day included buffalo chicken dip, guacamole, 7-layer dip and pigs in a blanket.

People were also looking for information on how and when to watch the game; searches related to the start time of the game and watch Super Bowl 2010 online were both notably high.

Most searched-for advertisers
In addition to spotlighting some of the finest football teams in the U.S., the Super Bowl is a showcase for some of the funniest, coolest and most interesting creative advertisements each year. This year, the prospect of "free" dominated the searched-for ads. The offer of free pants from Dockers garnered a spike of queries which continued throughout the game. Twice, Denny's advertised free grand slam breakfasts, leading to two bumps in searches for Denny's free breakfast, Denny's locations and Denny's.

Searchers also enjoyed ads featuring celebrities — including Betty White, who played football and ate Snickers bars, and Megan Fox, who used a Motorola smartphone.

We told the story of an American who finds love in Paris — using search queries. Google Super Bowl commercial led searchers to the love story of a man who dutifully searched for information on how to impress a French girl, long distance relationship advice and how to assemble a crib. (Full disclosure: We work for this advertiser.)

Stay tuned
Which advertiser won the position of Favorite 2010 Super Bowl Ad, according to fans? Check out YouTube's Ad Blitz results on February 17 to see which Super Bowl ad received the greatest number of positive votes from the YouTube community. Until then, you can use Google Trends to see more Super Bowl-related queries.

*We used internal tools to quickly gather this data. All of the search queries we looked at were anonymous — no personal information was used.

Posted by Jeffrey Oldham, Software Engineer