The death of the king of pop Michael Jackson dominated Google searches in the past month, with searches for his name up 3,500pc on Google.
And on Google News, the most popular search over the past seven days has just been just one word – ‘jackson’ – refecting the phenomenal interest and media attention after his untimely death.
According to Google’s traffic analysis for Ireland in June, the most popular rising searches after Michael Jackson were the US Open (up 1,450pc), Wimbledon 2009 (up 1,100pc), Oxegen (up 350pc) and Bruno (200pc).
According to Google, there was a spike in searches for ‘oxygen’ rather than the brand name of the Punchestown ‘Oxegen’ concert.
In the past seven days, two other sporting events, UFC and Tour de France, emerged as popular searches. There was increased interest in ‘ufc’, the Ultimate Fighting Championship, due to the ‘UFC 100’ held in Las Vegas on 11 July. The mixed martial arts competition has been steadily increasing in popularity in Ireland over the past few years.
Searches on the Tour de France were also up 250pc in the past seven days.
The 1 July marked the deadline for students to change their minds on the third-level courses they applied for on the CAO form, and searches on ‘cao’ were up 80pc in advance of the data.
By John Kennedy
