The Chinese search engine lists the most prevalent search terms and popular trends
Baidu Logo Image: Baidu.com |
Baidu Inc, owned by China's richest man, Robin Li, maintained its undisputed top ranking as China’s largest search engine in 2013. The company has now compiled a comprehensive list of the most popular search terms in 2013.
For Keyword searches “Weather”, “Taobao” and “Wu Dong Qian Kun” (a Chinese novel) took the top three positions, with “Baidu” and “Qzone” (social networking App) also making the top ten cut.
In the 'Event' searches category the Ya’an earthquake featured highly, as did real estate regulation and the H7N9 virus. Taking the fifth spot was “Hazy weather”, especially in China’s major cities that were worst affected by the pollution. Interestingly, in the “meme” category, PM2.5 was the third most searched term, reflecting nationwide concerns over pollution's affect on public health.
The first three mobile search terms were, perhaps, unsurprising: “weather”, “train ticket” and “lottery” taking the pole positions> However, these were followed by the more curious “gold price”, “constellation” and “translation”.
The Ford “Focus” was the most searched for auto, and quickly became the most popular car in 2013. The Tiguan SUV and the Jetta, manufactured by Volkswagen and FAW-VW, respectively, came second and third. Following on was FAW’s Bora, Shanghai GM’s Cruze, FAW’s Magotan and Sagitar, and finally VW’s Santana, and Lavida models.