Britney Spears tops Lycos search terms

From...

Britney Spears ranked highest in Lycos Web search terms

by Joris Evers

(IDG) -- Teen pop music idol Britney Spears finished the year number one on the list of most searched for people, places or things among users of the Lycos Inc. Web search engine.

The Lycos 50 is a hand-filtered list, so general terms like "car," "weather," "news," "MP3" and "sex" were disregarded when compiling the list, a spokesman for Lycos said.

"The Lycos 50 is about trends, not about general terms. Everybody knows "sex" is entered most in any search engine," said Renzo Moscou, spokesman for Lycos in the Netherlands.

The chart makers also add up all the queries that touch on one term. Misspellings and plurals are combined, so are variations on a theme. The Lycos 50 was compiled from lists of the most entered terms by users of the search site from Jan. 1 through Nov. 25.

	ALSO
The Lycos top 50 search terms for 2000

Runners up on the annual chart are Japanese cartoon phenomenon Dragonball Z, which came in fourth last year, and Pokemon, first in 1999.

The highest newcomer is Napster, which finished eighth, and was playfully dubbed "rookie of the year" by Lycos.

Other "winners" are the Summer Olympics, which finished 10th, Election 2000 at 12th, and the seemingly general "marijuana" at 20th. The Bible finished in spot 25. Besides Spears, two other entertainers broke the top 10 -- actress Pamela Anderson finished sixth and singer-actress Jennifer Lopez came in ninth.

IDG.net INFOCENTER IDG.net main page Free daily newsletters Instant help from the Dummies Network Computerworld Communities

"Strangely absent" on the list, according to Lycos, is golf pro Tiger Woods. His sport is number 40 on the list, while the two-time Sports Illustrated Sportsman of the Year doesn't even make it to the top 200.

While superstar Madonna bounced back on the list this year (37), some of last year's stars have faded. The Beanie Babies, the film The Blair Witch Project, and actress Jennifer Love Hewitt disappeared.

Lycos predicted that bands Tool and Destiny's Child, movies Tomb Raider and Lord of the Rings, actress Angelia Jolie, and the XFL, a spring football league, will make the 2001 list.

Danni's hard drive to adult content success
October 21, 2000
New search engine promises real answers
September 19, 2000
Study: Adults spend much more time on Web than teens
September 14, 2000
Metasearch engines reel in results
May 15, 2000

Lycos announces its own voice portal
(IDG.net)
Terra and Lycos agree on merger terms
(The Industry Standard)
How to get discovered on the Web
(The Industry Standard)
Why can't we find what we're looking for online?
(The Industry Standard)
Searching for relevance
(InfoWorld.com)
How to stop searching and start finding
(PCWorld.com)
Terra-Lycos: The shape of things to come
(The Industry Standard)
Lycos wants you to rank the Web
(PCWorld.com)

Lycos Inc.

Note: Pages will open in a new browser window

External sites are not endorsed by CNN Interactive.