Top Google searches in SA: July 2011

Jan Vermeulen

Jan Vermeulen is a technology journalist and web developer at MyBroadband. After receiving a Computer Engineering degree at the University of Pretoria he worked at...

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For South Africans the month of July was all about Amy Winehouse, the wedding of Charlene Wittstock and Prince Albert of Monaco, Google+, the Tour de France, strikes, and taxes.

This is according to Google Insights for Search, a service that forms part of the search giant’s Zeitgeist suite of tools.

Based on the top web searches it seems that South Africans still don’t know how to use their browser’s address bar, or bookmarks for that matter.

In South Africa there were enough differences between local and global search trends that they can be highlighted.

According to Google, SARS and e-filing saw a significant increase in searches from June 2011 while “jobs” returned the list of top 10 searches. During July 2011 South Africans also seemed to be particularly interested in pictures of the Orlando Pirates, Nelson Mandela, Amber Rose and the BlackBerry Bold.

In addition to the wedding in Monaco, South Africans were also concerned with Norway, presumably due to the recent shootings there. The terms “petrol” and “strike” also dominated news searches, which should come as no surprise to Gauteng motorists.

Overall, South Africans still wanted to know where Julius Malema had made the headlines, we were curious about the weather, and searched for news about PSL teams Orlando Pirates and Kaizer Chiefs. While the news searches for Kaizer Chiefs could have been for the British band of the same name, all indications point to greater interest in soccer than music.

The table below ranks the most searched terms and the fastest rising terms in South Africa for July 2011.

Tags: Amy Winehouse, google, Headline, Monaco wedding, Zeitgeist