ARTICLE

Australia’s search trends: What do we Google?

As social researchers at McCrindle Research we love to track not only demographic trends, but also the mood of the nation and what Australians care about.

One interesting exercise to monitor this is to find out what Aussies are looking for on Google. This also uncovers some interesting perspectives state by state…and indeed validates a few stereotypes. We like to think of this as a form of qualitative research on a larger scale.

Join McCrindle Research as we track a week of Googling in Australia!

Top three trends nationwide

It wouldn’t be Jubilee week without Queen Elizabeth slipping into the top ten, while obviously not ranking as highly as the UK which achieved four trending search terms for the Queen in the top ten… compared to other English speaking nations in the Commonwealth (Canada, South Africa and New Zealand) we love our royalty, with none of these countries featuring any jubilee-related search terms.
It seems Aussies are a nation of tech-heads, with three smart phone searches currently trending. We seem to love our technology even more than our cultural friends in the USA and the UK, with neither of these seeing a tech-trend in the past week.
It’s no surprise that we’re a sporty crew and our search terms reflect this, with AFL, more AFL and the tennis coming up trumps. State by state analysis shows the heartlands of several sports, for example; Victorians have four trending AFL searches, compared to just one in NSW, QLD and WA! In Adelaide of course the South Australian National Football League is popular, while in Tassie the National Basketball Association ranked well!

Trends across the states

While the search terms were similar across all the states, there were a couple of interesting searches that reveal differences across the nation.

In NSW the ASX slipped in, showing the strong influence of the financial sector in this state.
Queenslanders have always had a strong affinity with Credit Unions and interestingly CUA was trending this week as one of their top searches.
Perhaps it’s been raining in WA, as a night in with a movie and a pizza seemed to be on the cards for many west Australians (as well as the weather report!), with dominos, BOM and Game of Thrones all trending in this state.

Movies and entertainment

It’s no surprise that with winter on its way, many Australians seem to be off to the movies…indeed the new science fiction movie Prometheus is rating highly across the globe at the moment. Interestingly, different movie theatres are trending in different states, with Hoyts rating well in WA, Event cinemas in QLD and the Dendy in the ACT where arty movies rate well, and indeed with all those embassies foreign films are a must!