Anna ruled the cyberworld in 2011: Search data

Trounced Bollywood star Katrina, cricketer Sachin Tendulkar

Google and Yahoo, two of the most used search platforms in the country, have named Anna amongst the most popular ‘searched names’ of the year, as they released the search data for India in 2011.

While Yahoo’s data suggests that Anna trounced Bollywood star Katrina Kaif and cricketing legend Sachin Tendulkar, Google’s annual “Zeitgeist” said that the Gandhian is amongst the fastest rising people of 2011 on the internet.

The Google’s list of fastest rising terms also included the IBPS (Institute of Banking Personnel Service), which suggested a widespread interest among Indians to apply for banking jobs. Indian Railways also emerged as fastest rising search term given the increasing number of online ticket reservations.

In a sign that internet is finding more users on the mobile and is making inroads beyond the boundaries of the metro cities, Google also said the number of searches in the country touched the 125 million mark, 70 per cent of whom used the internet from outside the metros.  

“This data suggests internet usage in the country becoming truly mainstream in 2011,” said Lalitesh Katrigadda, Google India’s product head. “Over 70 per cent of the search happened in non-metros. A lot of the searchs happened through mobiles and we hit the 125 million mark. For the first time, the online world heard the views of the aam adhmi.”

According to Google’s Zeitgeist, Katrina continues to reign supreme amongst Indian searchers, while Salman Khan and Anushka Sharma took the next two positions as the most searched stars. Bodyguard and Ra one were the most searched Bollywood flicks of the year.

Information on Lokpal Bill, Aadhar cards, Japan earthquake and assassination of Al Kaida leader Osama Bin Laden, also found a place amongst top searches of the year.  Yahoo’s annual search data names Anna the “newsmaker” of the year. “His 288 hour fast at Ramlila Maidan made him the face of India’s battle against corruption,” according to the internet giant, which also positioned little master Sachin Tendulkar and Katrina Kaif as second and third most popular persons based on its data.

“Some bizarre (news) stories like PETA opening a porn site, a woman giving birth to her own grandchild and kissing can cause cavities,” were also amongst the top list of Yahoo. It also highlighted interest for “cheeky numbers” like Kolaveri and D K Bose. Yahoo said it had analysed the data gathered from search terms for the selection of the most popular news stories, while Google said it had sliced and diced aggregated search queries which do not reveal individual profiles.