Top 10 most searched words on Yahoo!

BANGALORE, INDIA: Yahoo! India has announced the most popular searches, themes and trends as part of its 2008 Year-ender Special, as told through the searches conducted by millions of users.

Among the top people searches, Bollywood actress Deepika Padukone emerged a clear winner.

These most searched words in 2008 not only represents the top ten searches across categories, but also shows that users even search for information that affect their daily life including the economy, government organizations and controversies.

“Extreme proliferation of information and paucity of time is fuelling the human desire to get the right answers faster than ever before, prompting them to look for newer search experiences. People are showing a strong preference for a search experience, which integrates relevant text, images, and video content information from across the web onto a single search results page,” said Gopal Krishna, VP and Head of Audience, Emerging Markets, Yahoo!

“These search trends provide greater insight on consumer search behaviour, which in turn helps in making the right information available to people more quickly and easily," Gopal added.

Mobile users continued their online activities even when they were on-the-go. The top searches on Yahoo! oneSearch, the company’s award-winning mobile search product, was ‘Cricket’ followed by ‘Katrina Kaif’ and ‘Asin’, the lead actress of popular Bollywood film Ghajini.

“Users are increasingly searching for information on a mobile device. Yahoo! oneSearch is designed for the needs of a mobile user, intuitively returning results grouped around the user's query intent. For instance, when users search for cricket, Yahoo! oneSearch returns the latest scores, schedules, team profiles, roster, news, images and links to the cricket teams’ websites,” said Vishal Maheshwari, senior director, Connected Life, Yahoo! India.

Synopsis on “Top 10” searches

Users on Yahoo! India Search looked for various people and themes across categories like entertainment, sports, people, news, movies and online sites. India’s entertainment industry and Bollywood icons definitely ruled in 2008, as they were included in almost all of the top categories. The hottest searches this year included Deepika Padukone, Indian Railways and the Sixth Pay Commission. Deepika once again topped the top people searches, along with Shilpa Shetty and Aishwarya Rai. The launch of iphone, the Bhajji-Sreesanth Row and the Bangalore Blasts were among the Top News Search for 2008. Searches in sports category comprised Cricket, Sachin Tendulkar and the Indian Tour of Australia. Films took centre stage as well, with titles like Singh Is Kinng, Dasavatharam and Kuselan being searched heavily by users.

Top 10 most searched words on Yahoo! India Mobile

1.      Cricket

2.      Katrina Kaif

3.      Asin

4.      Deepika Padukone

5.      Priyanka Chopra

6.      Bipasha Basu

7.      Kajol

8.      Trisha Krishnan

9.      Olympics 2008

10.    Bihar Flood