South Africans on the Internet seem to want sex and pornography more than anything else, but they also hope for instant riches as well as long-term earnings. These impressions can be gleaned from the most popular terms requested at portal site and search engine Ananzi.
But Ananzi business unit manager Mark Buwalda says that first impression can be very misleading.
"Due to the nature of the database, individuals searching for say, holiday information, will use a variety of terms to look for the same type of information."
Despite this, as has been the case on almost all search engines across the world since records have been kept, the term "sex" is the most popular on Ananzi.
But this is not always the case. In December last year, the term "matric results" came in first as thousands of anxious 18-year olds waited for their grades. In January this year "jobs", normally a dependable number two, was the most popular, as the same 18-year olds planned their futures along with assorted cubicle-dwellers who had had enough. In the same month, the term "unisa", referring to the University of South Africa, came in third.
However, "sex", "jobs" and "lotto" is the normal order of the most popular terms. Also often to be found among the top 20 is generic "mp3" and "games", as well as sexual variations.
Although these conform almost exactly with the experience of internationally used search engines such as Google and Yahoo, South Africans do seem to have a need for communication not normally found overseas.
Usually to be found among the top 20 are "mtn" and "vodacom", as people search for information on the cellular services these companies provide, and "sms" or the cellular short message service. "Chat" can also usually be counted on to rate highly.
The only other popular company name searched for is Incredible Connection, the computer retailer. The company is also the only organisation with an e-commerce presence which normally makes the top 20.
Predictably, seasonal, once-off and general news events can be counted on to drive searchers in a certain direction, and not only in the New Year. In June the terms "eclipse" and "solar eclipse" came in at seventh and twentieth respectively, while in April "human genome" was the ninth most popular term.
Buwalda says Ananzi also still finds many individuals typing in full URLs as search terms.
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