Harry Who?

We all know Harry is a popular name, but which Harry is the most popular of all?  According to search trends, "the boy who lived" is even more popular than the real life British prince: 

Surprisingly, historical Harry's such as magician Harry Houdini, US President Harry Truman, and singer-songwriter Harry Chapin remain popular well after their deaths.  Additional Harry's include "Dirty" Harry Callahan, a 1971 movie casting Clint Eastwood as cop Dirty Harry, the gourmet food company "Harry and David", and musicians Harry Belafonte, Harry Connick Jr., and Debbie Harry.

Epiar is an Edmonton-based internet market research and search engine optimization company. Please contact us for more information or to commission your own research reports.

Based on data collected from close to 200 online sources over the past year, “DVD Easter eggs” (hidden items on DVD menus) have now surpassed chocolate and painted Easter eggs in popularity, measured by the number of times each phrase is searched in popular search engines. Similarly, our friend the Easter bunny remains less popular than Easter island.

Surprisingly, an overwhelming portion of searches centered on secular topics, with searches for the Easter bunny, Easter gifts and Easter games far outnumbering searches such as “Easter Sunday” (42 searches per day), “history of Easter” (34), “Easter prayer” (13) and “Easter sermon” (13).  By contrast, even “Easter bunny costume” is searched 47 times per day!

Searches for the spiritual side of Easter in 2007 would seem to remain an offline quest.

Epiar is an Edmonton-based internet market research and search engine optimization company. Please contact us for more information or to commission your own research reports. For a high resolution version of the Easter research graph, please click here.

With the holiday season now clearly upon us, it seems that Christmas is on everyone’s mind. It’s actually very difficult to escape, assuming you’d even want to!

This week, I decided to take a look at the topics and ideas emerging from online Christmas searches to see how people’s internet search behaviour reflects society’s most prevalent web-related Christmas thoughts. Are people thinking about Santa, baby Jesus, Christmas crafts & decorations, a favourite recipe, or what?

The following chart shows the most popularly searched concepts within the top several thousand search phrases that include the word “Christmas”:

Please click here for an expanded list of Christmas wishes as expressed in internet search.

Without surprise, online Christmas searches center around such popular topics as gifts, trees, food, and carols. I find each of these reports very interesting, reminding me how my own views on Christmas are just one of a million possible perspectives on the holiday season. Whichever of these thoughts you choose to focus on this holiday season, best wishes & happy holidays from everyone at Epiar!

Epiar Inc. is an Edmonton-based internet market research and search engine optimization company. Please contact us for more information or to commission your own research reports.

Many people travel to Chicago or consider the windy city home, but what are people looking for online in relation to the Midwestern city? Tourist attractions, local services, general information, special events, or perhaps something else?

Recent research by Epiar Inc. explored the nature of online search in relation to Chicago. After analyzing the top 7000 phrases with an estimated annual search volume of over 50 million searches, the following topics emerged as the most prominent Chicago search topics:

Please click here for an expanded report on Chicago online search statistics.

Exploring Chicago Searches

Professional sports fans will be interested to see the high number of searches for Chicago’s football, baseball, and basketball teams. Apparently, the Bears’ very successful season is not limited to only the football field. It is amazing how searches for sports teams compare in number with searches for other Chicago features and indentifying characteristics - who knew professional sports were really that popular?

Tourist institutions and special events also appeared prominently within internet search, with the Chicago Marathon, the Chicago Auto Show, and the Art Institute of Chicago all attracting significant levels of public attention. Which local attractions do you think people might be searching for around your home town?

Searches by people in need of local services were also high, with phrases like “jobs in Chicago”, “home inspection Chicago”, and “Chicago police” in high search demand. Presumably, many more searches for local services are also being entered without the word “Chicago” in the phrase, possibly including a neighborhood geographic reference instead or no geographic mention at all.

With all of this talk about Chicago, it makes me want to go there to see if the search frequency research properly reflects the real city – good thing a couple of us from Epiar will be in town to present at a Search Engine Strategies conference there later this week!

Epiar Inc. is an Edmonton-based internet market research and search engine optimization company. Please contact us for more information or to commission your own research reports.

Toyota is one of those companies that always seems to be producing good news: from sleek new models to growing market share to increased fuel efficiency to the stories you keep hearing from satisfied vehicle owners. Given this generally positive aura surrounding the brand, how does Toyota fare in the public eye as measured by the way people search for the Japanese auto-maker online? What topics, models, problems, or buying opportunities are people most commonly entering into search engines in conjunction with Toyota?

Recent research by Epiar Inc. took a look into these questions, exploring the top several thousand phrases entered into search engines which include the word “Toyota.” Curious to see which ideas and associations jumped to the top of the list, the following topics were uncovered as the most popular:

Please click here for an expanded report on the top Toyota search phrases.

Taking a Closer Look

Of interest to the Toyota executives and bean-counters, the sporty Supra was among the most popularly searched individual models, followed closely by the Tacoma, Camry, Corolla, Prius, Celica, and Tundra. The truck department at Toyota should be proud of their rise in brand power as compared to the ever-popular Toyota sport utility vehicles, sedans, and compact cars.

One interesting feature of the Toyota search phrases surrounded the manner in which people searched for Toyotas by model year. Searches for 2007, 2006, and 2005 vehicles were predictably the highest, followed by a surprisingly even number of searches for models dating from 2004 through the 1980s and beyond. Clearly, people are still concerned about buying or repairing their older Toyotas!

In relation to older models, searches for repairs, parts, service, and other phrases implying car-trouble also appeared within popular search. It would be interesting to compare the top several thousand repair-related search phrases of Toyota with those of Ford, Honda, GM, and others. Are Toyota’s repair phrases proportionally higher or lower than those of their competitors? Which parts & problems show up the most prominently in each manufacturer’s search phrases? How is Toyota’s reputation of mechanical reliability reflected in the volume of search requests for car service and repair manuals versus the other major auto brands? All interesting questions to save for another day…

Speaking of reliability – with this cold Edmonton winter weekend and somewhere to be tonight, I sure am glad my trusty Corolla is working just fine!

Epiar Inc. is an Edmonton-based internet market research and search engine optimization company. Please contact us for more information or to commission your own research reports.