George Carlin’s Death Spikes Searches For His Seven Words You Can Never Say On TV

Jun 23, 2008 at 8:24am ET by Danny Sullivan

I was saddened to hear one of my favorite comedians, George Carlin, passed away Sunday. Clearly he touched many people. A quick look at Google Trends shows searches related to him have spiked up as well as for his famous "seven words you can’t say on TV." Among the things people are seeking:

As for those words you can’t say on TV, they’ve long since passed as being taboo for television. On the internet, people will say anything, of course. So of those seven famous words, which were most popular according to Google Trends? I checked them all, and only two of them showed substantial search volume, the F-word and tits.

I’m not going to block out saying "tits" because as any Carlin fan knows, it doesn’t belong on the list because it’s such a "friendly sounding word." And of all those seven words, it’s also the only one showing a sudden spike in news search traffic. But that’s not Carlin-related. Zooming in, something happened in mid-June to spike news searches for that term.

Back to Carlin-related searches, it’s interesting the number of people looking for YouTube videos of him via Google itself and the site:youtube.com restriction, rather than just at YouTube.

Enough words. Just enjoy Carlin. From Google Video, his first HBO special:

As I’ve been going through my big move from the UK to the US, moving all my stuff, Carlin’s "stuff" routine has constantly been on my mind. It’s another one well worth watching:

And featured on the Google Video home page, yes, his classic seven words you can’t say:

Danny Sullivan is editor-in-chief of Search Engine Land. He’s a widely cited authority on search engines and search marketing issues who has covered the space since 1996. Danny also oversees Search Engine Land’s SMX: Search Marketing Expo conference series, maintains a personal blog called Daggle and microblogs on Twitter as @dannysullivan.

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