Understanding Search

The number one search for today was for Glenn Beck Surgery.  Beck has posted a YouTube video describing a yet-to-be-named hospital that apparently botched his surgery.  Beck rambles about suicidal thoughts and other side effects from his horrible encounter.  Entire story and video here.

Other heavy search traffic involved the weather in California.  A storm stretching from southern Washington to Los Angeles has been hitting the state for most of the day and flooding is very possible.  The Bay Area seems to be taking the brunt of the storm as can be seen by searches for “San Francisco weather”, “Sacramento weather” and “San Jose weather”.

Today’s search volume has been thoroughly dominated by people following the caucuses in Iowa.  Of the top 100 recent Google searches, more than 30% have been related to politics including phrases such as Super Tuesday, caucus definition, primary vs. caucus, caucus exit polls, presidential candidates, 2008 election, and so much more.

A clear winner also emerged in the ”best place to get your political coverage” category, as CNNPolitics.com and CNN Politics were both in the top 5% of all searches this evening.  And, while the caucuses were the story in Iowa and around the world, many other searches for Iowa also rose to the top, like Population of Iowa, Iowa time zone, Iowa newspaper, and Iowa Secretary of State.

The second day of 2008 brought us an interesting surprise in search.  Twelve of the top thirty searches for the day involved clothing brands and stores with the majority being women’s designer clothing.  The brand Akris alone held the number one and three positions while others like Marshall Fields, J and Company, Michael Kors, Donna Karan and Elie Tahari rounded out the top thirty.

Guessing most of these searches happened after Oprah mentioned these specific brands today.

As you might expect on the first day of January, 2008…many people are searching for parades, college football bowl games, hangover remedies, lottery results, and food recipes.

Probably one of the biggest stories overnight came when Robbie Maddison (not to be confused with Billy Madison) set a new world record in Las Vegas by jumping his motorcycle more than 322 feet (98 meters).

And, while we’ll probably see this one pop up again on March 18th, seems a few of us are feeling the after effects of last night’s celebrations. Hangover remedies and cures are strong contenders for the most popular searches of the morning (and possibly into the early afternoon, as many are just waking up).