Few surprises in list of most popular web searches published by internet portal
The Czech Republic's biggest internet portal has just published a list of the most frequent searchwords used on its website in 2003. Although the results are similar to those published in many other countries, one or two specifically Czech areas of interest were also featured.
A list of the most common searchwords used on the Czech Republic's most popular internet portal seems to reflect a growing obsession with electronic gadgetry. The word "sms" was the most frequent searchword entered by Czech users last year, followed by "games" and the name of the mobile phone manufacturer Nokia.
A list of the top-ten male and female celebrities whose names were used for internet searches threw up a number of the "usual suspects", with both Pamela Anderson and Britney Spears making the female top-ten. First place, however, was reserved for Tereza Pergnerova, a former Czech television presenter who is now more famous for her problems with drugs. American rapper Eminem topped the male chart.
Unsurprisingly, The Beatles headed the list of pop groups who were the subject of a web search, while Chinaski were the most sought-after Czech band in third place.
The top countries listed were popular holiday destinations for Czechs with Croatia topping the poll followed by the United States and Italy.
The lists were compiled by the local Seznam internet portal, which is hugely popular among Czech users. Seznam was founded by the company's CEO Ivo Lukacovic eight years ago after he had dropped out of college at just 22 years of age. I asked Mr Lukacovic what services Czechs like using the most:
"The Czechs like spending a lot of time on the chat [boards], they also use it for searching and sending e-mails. I would say that the popularity of the services is the same as that of any portal all over the world."
Mr Lukacovic added that the lists showed how Czechs use the portal for different things at the weekend than they do during the week, when they are working. Searches for terms like "Labour Office" and "Trade Register" were more frequent on weekdays, while games and erotic keywords were much more common searches on Saturdays and Sundays.
Mr Lukacovic also said that the popularity of erotica and pornography was proving to be a problem for one Seznam service, which allowed users to create their own internet pages for free:
"Yes, we have a service that offers free web space to our users, and this service is being used for pornography and non-legal content so we have to monitor these activities and delete this sort of content. It's costing us a lot of time and money so we're thinking of simply stopping this service."
You can get a full list of the most frequent searches made in 2003 - broken down into various categories - on the Seznam website.
