Canada is known as an Internet savvy country. In fact, according to the CBC, Canada leads the pack when it comes to Internet adoption and usage. This fact is more than likely what has Google so confused, as the most popular search for Canadians in 2011 was in fact a url - “www.census2011.gc.ca”. That’s right, instead of simply accessing the site directly, many Canadians chose to type the address into the Google Search bar.
Aaron Brindle, a spokesman for Google Canada, says this year’s results are “peculiar”. “Typing ‘census’ would’ve made more sense to me as well but I guess there were millions and millions of Canadians that must’ve put in the URL.”
Every year Google compile a list of the most frequently searches, and boil them down on a country-by-country basis using Google Zeitgeist. Some sites are repeatedly the most searched for, such as Facebook, and are therefore stripped from the results, the remaining terms being a list of “fastest-rising” results.
While this year’s most popular search is strange, it should be noted that “Facebook”, and in fact “Google”, are consistently in the top 10 searches every year. The most popular searches for Canadians this year were:
1. www.census2011.gc.ca
2. Skyrim
3. Canada Post Strike
4. Rebecca Black
5. Ryan Dunn
6. Japan Earthquake
7. Game of Thrones
8. Jack Layton
9. Royal Wedding
10. Google Plus
Google's mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful. As a first step to fulfilling that mission,... [more]
Stephen Christensen
Stephen is the Atlantic Canadian contributor for Techvibes.com; reporting Canadian technology news, with a focus on the Maritime provinces. Having a deep-rooted interest in science and technology for much of his life, he is most interested in mobile technology and social media. Having been published in various scientific journals, he is...[more]
