Hitwise: “Facebook” Was 4 Of Top 10 Search Queries In 2011

Following the major engines themselves, Experian Hitwise announced the top search terms of 2011. The company looked at the top 1,000 search queries of 2011 and found that Facebook topped the list for the third year in a row.

Overall Facebook had four of the top 10 search terms for 2011, the same as in 2010. However query volume for the collection of Facebook terms grew 33 percent vs. last year.

Top search queries of 2010 and 2011

What’s noteworthy is that all of the top 10 are navigational queries. Beyond the top 10, Hitwise said that “social networking-related terms dominated the results, accounting for 4.18 percent of the top 50 searches. This is an increase of 12 percent compared with 2010.”

According to Hitwise, the top 10 websites visited in the US were the following:

1. Facebook
2. Google
3. Youtube
4. Mail.yahoo.com
5. Yahoo
6. Bing
7. Search.yahoo.com
8. Gmail
9. Mail.live.com
10. MSN.com

The biggest “mover” among the top 10 queries and websites was Myspace, which exited in accordance with its precipitous decline in traffic. There’s more analysis of the year’s top search queries by category in the Hitwise blog post.

Curiously, Facebook doesn’t appear on any of the “top lists” issued by Google, Yahoo, Bing, Ask or AOL (see below). With Google’s list, at least, it’s based on “rising” queries rather than those most popular overall.

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About The Author

Greg Sterling

Greg Sterling is a Contributing Editor at Search Engine Land. He writes a personal blog, Screenwerk, about connecting the dots between digital media and real-world consumer behavior. He is also VP of Strategy and Insights for the Local Search Association. Follow him on Twitter or find him at Google+.