Aussies do "good" searches

Posted by Kate Conroy, AdWords Coordinator

One of the cool things about search engines is that they seem to mirror the collective psyche of all the people who search on them. Australians are no different, and we've noticed that we Aussies have our own special profile when it comes to searching Google.

If you take a look at Google Trends we like to search for 'good' more often than people in any other country. This makes us seem like an up-beat and happy crowd, but we also do the most searches for 'loser' and 'idiot' which seem to indicate the opposite. The Kiwis, on the other hand do the most searches for 'winner' and 'thinking'. But they also do the most searches for 'sheep', so we can keep making sheep jokes for a while longer.

The way we search is in some ways not surprising. Proportionally, Australians do the most searches for meat pies, Aussie Rules, sunshine, sunburn, sea change, air conditioning, beer, Torana, snake, water restrictions, roast lamb, quit smoking, backyard, child care, kids and almost all of the searches for cubby house. Melbournians search for spring carnival, Sydney-siders search for harbour and red wine, and the good folk of Brisbane search for lifesavers and cattle dog. In Canberra they want a home loan and in Perth they’re all looking for mine jobs.

But it’s the non-stereotypical searches that have us scratching our heads, and so now’s your chance to enlighten us on some of your oddball search behaviour.

Why does Sydney, city of sin and parties, do the most searches for Easter and bored? How come everyone in Perth wants a trip to the chocolate factory?

Why do we only come second to the Brits on searching for help? What does it say about our appreciation of our native fauna that we do fewer searches for Koala than Slovakia and Spain? Does it mean something that we do the most searches for hate while at the same time we’re all searching for happiness?

Why on earth in this hot, dry country do we do the most searches for ski hire? Are we all so tired that all we want to search for is sleeping in? Does Australia have more lost dogs than any other country? Perhaps it’s about time we added a ‘Pet’ tab to Google search for Australia!

If you can offer any illuminating insights into the search behaviour of Australians we’d love to hear your feedback.