All eyes on Google

All eyes on Google

The world’s eyes are on Google right now as allegations of rigged search results emerge. Did Google benefit from eliminating the competition? Plus, see the UAE’s biggest search terms for 2010.

December 12, 2010 8:30 by Eva Fernandes

According to the latest Zeitgeist, Google has announced the year’s top searches. And, as always, its findings are just a little surprising. Kipp grabbed a look at the results for the UAE, and thought we might share.

Apparently the fastest rising search term in the UAE is “burj khalifa”, with “what is love” coming in as the most popular “discovery” search in the UAE. And, a little dishearteningly, “Justin Beiber” apparently ranks as the top person searched for in the UAE. It could be worse, we thought, and then we couldn’t think how…

Here are the highlights:

Fastest Rising Search Terms in the UAE
1. burj khalifa
2. ترتوب
3. world cup 2010
4. hotmail sign in
5. emirates nbd
6. fantage
7. قيمزر
8. gmail login
9. youtube video
10. facebook login

Most Popular ‘Discovery’ Searches in the UAE
1.what is love
2. what is life
3. wikipedia
4. what is internet
5. dictionary
6. translate
7. what is the weather
8. what is marketing
9. what is accounting
10. what is 3g

Fastest Rising People Searches in the UAE
1. justin bieber
2. shakira
3. lady gaga
4. salman khan
5. katrina kaif
6. حسين الجسمي
7. kim kardashian
8. miley cyrus
9. manny pacquiao
10. michael jackson

Kipp is still wondering why “what is internet” remains a pressing question in 2010. Surely the UAE is beyond that?

Although, we might not be too surprised if the users were somehow redirected to the searches by Google. According to recent allegations, Google may be rigging search results to their benefit. The charges, which are yet to be tried by the European Commission, say that Google gives “priority to results that relate to its own services.” The allegations come from a variety of Google’s European competitors including French Ejustice.fr, German shopping site Ciao and British website Foundem.

Together they say that Google has “abused a dominant market position in online search by allegedly lowering the ranking of unpaid search results of competing services which are specialised in providing users with specific online content such as price comparisons.”
As the case unravels it will surely be Google’s credibility that is on the line. As for us in the UAE, we are just trying to figure out how Google would benefit from ranking Justin Bieber searches so highly. Since we can’t think of any way, we’ll just have to assume there are a lot of busy ten year old girls out there in the Emirates. Either that or we should all be very ashamed.