Loy Okezie
Last year, I wrote about Google’s 2008 Year-End Google Zeitgeist for top and rising search words/phrases around the world and wondered why Google deliberately left out Nigerian top searches, but included those of South Africa. I also wondered if it was an ‘error of omission’ by Google or perhaps Nigeria’s search terms were not relevant enough for Google’s Zeitgeist.
My guess is that Google might have disregarded the search terms from Nigeria for 2008 perhaps because they lacked the credibility for a quality search term. (Don’t ask me why). My hope was to see Nigerian top searches in Google’s Zeitgeist for 2009 with search terms like ‘nokia’, ’social networking’, ‘playstation’, ‘blackberry’.
The word, Zeitgeist (from German Zeit-time and Geist- spirit) is “the spirit of the times” and/or “the spirit of the age”, and Google reveals this spirit through the aggregation of millions of search queries they receive every day.
Interesting, Google was listening (I’m sure they read my post) and decided to reveal “the spirit of Nigeria’s search age” and thus published (for the first time) the top 10 search terms in different categories from Nigeria for the year-end 2009.
Below is a list of Google Zeitgeist 2009 for Nigeria…
Fastest Rising
- zain
- aero
- opera
- yahoo mail
- mtn
- michael jackson
- gani fawehinmi
- myjambexams.com
- kwara state university
Most Searched for Nigeria
- zoom nigeria
- guardian newspaper nigeria
- Time in Nigeria
- Firs Nigeria
- newspapers in nigeria
- lasunigeria
- hitv nigeria
- first bank nigeria
- klm nigeria
- nigeriaworld
Most searched for Media
- osun defender
- mnetafrica
- the nation newspaper
- pm news
- daily trust newspaper
- guardian newspaper nigeria
- sahara reporters
- vanguard newspaper
- bbchausa.com
- bbc sport football
Most Popular
- nigeria
- yahoo
- nokia
- news
- badoo
- michael jackson
- chelsea news
Most searched for Brands
- fitc
- zain
- aero
- dana air
- mtn
- arik air
- blackberry
- first bank
- dhl
- wema bank
Most searched for Celebs
- michael jackson
- wande coal
- kanye west
- rihanna
- whitney houston
- beyonce
- chris brown
- lil wayne
- akon
- barack obama
According to Google Zeitgeist 2009,
Nigerians surfing the web showed varied interests from education and online tools to international and local musicians. Yahoo, facebook, Nokia, Google and Badoo all featured in the year’s most popular searches reflecting the growing importance of finding and sharing information online. The fastest rising searches were dominated by local requests – Zain, Aero, Gani Fawehinmi and Kwara State University – a clear indication that local content matter to Nigerians. And finally Nigerians are absolutely passionate about music as the top celebrity search list is dominated by pop stars with Obama as the only exception!
My thoughts
I think that the results show an interesting and varied search interest from Nigerians for 2009. Indeed, local content really matter to Nigerians as can be seen in the list of ‘Most Searched for Nigeria’ and ‘Most Searched for Media’.
However, the list of Most Searched for Celebs has only ‘Wande Coal’ (on the 2nd spot) as the ‘Most Searched Nigerian celebrity on the Internet’ amongst American music stars and celebrities.
For the list of Most Searched for Brands, I would have thought that some of the banks the CBN bailed out such as ‘Oceanic Bank’ will be on the list, but interestingly ‘First Bank of Nigeria’ showed its strengths by leading the pack as ‘Nigeria’s Most Searched Bank Online’.
Personally, I’m happy with the quality search terms found in this results and look forward to seeing more quality searches in Google Zeitgeist 2010 for Nigeria.
Source: Google Zeitgeist 2009
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Thanks for this information. My sister has been wondering about this topic for a while.
[...] “most searched for brands”, and “most searched for celebs”, as it did in Zeitgeist 2009. Instead, Google Zeitgeist 2010 lists “fastest rising searches”, “fastest rising [...]