Forget Kim Kardashian, here’s what we really searched for in 2012

Kim Kardashian. Hurricane Sandy. Jeremy Lin. Big Bird. These timely phrases are not the most searched for terms of 2012.

After analyzing the top 1,000 search terms across 60 search engines, Experian Marketing Services found that the most searched for term of 2012 was ... Facebook.

And not because of the IPO.

Facebook was also the most searched for phrase of 2011, 2010, 2009 and 2008.

Why were people searching for Facebook? Presumably because they were too lazy to go to their browser’s URL bar and type in facebook.com. Although oddly, the fifth most popular search term of 2012 was facebook.com. The sixth most popular? www.facebook.com.

Experian’s data show that the most popular search terms coincide with some of the most popular sites on the Internet. YouTube took the second spot on the list. Craigslist moved up a spot from 2011 to take third place. Facebook login, Yahoo, EBay, MapQuest and Amazon round out the top ten.

Facebook was also the most visited site of 2012, with 79.1 billion visits from the U.S. Google was a relatively close second with 78.5 billion U.S. visits. YouTube had 25.9 billion visits, and Yahoo Mail had 22.2 billion.

And in case you’re wondering, Kim Kardashian was actually the 291st most searched for phrase of 2012.

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