Facebook Tops List of Most Searched Term for 2011
The social media phenomenon known as Facebook takes this year's top spot as the most searched web term for 2011.
According to Experian Hitwise, Facebook was looked up the most during people's web searches. "Navigational searches dominated the top search results as users typed in terms versus typing in the URL in the browser bar," said Simon Bradstock, general manager of Experian Hitwise, about the impact of Facebook's web search popularity.
"Hitwise saw 11 percent growth of single-word searches in 2011 as terms like 'face' and 'you' made the top 50 searches," he continued. "Marketers need to be particularly brand-savvy when managing their search optimization campaigns because of this behavior, which is a result of predictive search functionality across major search engines."
Get Our Latest News for FREE
The top ten list consisted of these search terms:
1. Facebook
2. YouTube
3. Facebook Login
4. Craigslist
5. Facebook.com
6. Yahoo
7. eBay
8. www.facebook.com
9. Mapquest
10. Yahoo.com
As evident by the list above, Facebook was searched for in different terms and took the top spots several times. This is the third year that Facebook has dominated the space, making up 3.1 percent of all U.S. searches online.
Facebook was also the most-visited Web site, followed by Google, YouTube, Yahoo Mail, Yahoo, Bing, Yahoo Search, Gmail, Microsoft's Live.com, and MSN.com. From January to Nov. 2011, Facebook reportedly drew 10.29-percent of all Internet visits in the U.S.
Experian Hitwise also discovered that "other top 2011 searches reflect ongoing fascination with celebrities online, and many of the top fast-moving searches centered on natural disasters or notable personalities passing away."
Mark Zuckerberg's social media website still seems to be the top dog on the Internet. 2011 has further validated its success and popularity due to the website being the most searched term and item.
