Star Wars tops movie search terms. That's real staying power.

Experian Hitwise, a part of Experian Marketing Services, has analyzed the top 1,000 search terms for 2011[1], and Facebook was the top-searched term overall in the US. This is the third year that the social networking Website has been the top search term overall, accounting for 3.10 percent of all searches, a 46 percent increase from 2010.

Among personalities who topped search lists, there are few surprises: The top-searched person among News and Media sites was Casey Anthony, followed by Charlie Sheen and Kim Kardashian. That gives us pause regarding the state of our popular culture.

Four variations of the term “facebook” were among the top 10 terms and accounted for 4.42 percent of searches overall, a 24 percent increase from 2010.

Among the top 10 terms, “youtube” moved up from the third spot in 2010 to the second spot in 2011. “Facebook login” was the third most-searched term in 2011, followed by “craigslist” and “facebook.com.” Facebook.com moved up one spot in 2011 to be among the top five search terms.

Social-networking related terms dominate

Analysis of the search terms revealed that social networking–related terms dominated the results, accounting for 4.18 percent of the top 50 searches. This is an increase of 12 percent compared with 2010. It’s becoming more and more evident that social networking and the Internet go together like mustard on hot dogs.

When combined, common search terms for Facebook — e.g., facebook and facebook.com — accounted for 3.48 percent of all searches in the United States among the top 50 terms, which represents a 33 percent increase compared with 2010.

YouTube terms accounted for 1.36 percent, representing a 21 percent increase compared with 2010. Google terms (including YouTube) accounted for 1.59 percent — an increase of 27 percent compared with 2010. Yahoo terms accounted for 0.59 percent — an increase of 15 percent compared with 2010.

New terms that entered the top 50 search terms for 2011 included addicting games, amazon.com, cnn, chase online, face, facebook sign up, hotmail, lowes, pandora, twitter and you.

“Navigational searches dominated the top search results as users typed in terms versus typing in the URL in the browser bar,” said Simon Bradstock, general manager of Experian Hitwise.

“Hitwise saw 11 percent growth of single-word searches in 2011 as terms like ‘face’ and ‘you’ made the top 50 searches. Marketers need to be particularly brand-savvy when managing their search optimization campaigns because of this behavior, which is a result of predictive search functionality across major search engines.

Other top 2011 searches reflect ongoing fascination with celebrities online, and many of the top fast-moving searches centered on natural disasters or notable personalities passing away.”

Top-visited Websites in 2011
Facebook was the top-visited Website for the second year and accounted for 10.29 percent of all U.S. visits between January and November 2011 — a 15 percent increase from 2010. Google.com ranked second, with 7.70 percent of visits — a 7 percent increase — followed by YouTube (3.17 percent), Yahoo! Mail (2.95 percent) and Yahoo! (2.47 percent).

The combination of Google properties accounted for 11.98 percent of all U.S. visits — a 22 percent increase compared with 2010. Facebook properties accounted for 8.93 percent, and Yahoo! properties accounted for 6.81 percent. The top 10 Websites accounted for 32 percent of all U.S. visits between January and November 2011, which was flat compared with 2010.

The fastest-moving search terms based on absolute change in 2011 included hurricane irene, bin laden wives, osama bin laden dead, les paul, nick ashford dies, apophis asteroid, sheen dumped, hurricane irene path and amber cole.

Charlie Sheen: bad behavior kept him in the public eye all year.

Top public figure searches — Justin Bieber was the 92nd most popular overall search term in the United States in 2011:

1. Justin Bieber (92)
2. Casey Anthony (178)
3. Kim Kardashian (193)
4. Nicki Minaj (210)
5. Selena Gomez (244)
6. Charlie Sheen (292)

Top personalities — the top five searches from within the Personalities category (sites focused on celebrities and stars):

1. Kim Kardashian
2. Glenn Beck
3. Rush Limbaugh
4. Robert Pattinson
5. Khloe Kardashian

Fastest-moving movie titles — the top five searches from within the Movies category:

1. Star Wars
2. Transformers 3
3. (Twilight) Breaking Dawn
4. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
5. Fast Five

Lady Gaga

Music —  the top five searched-for artists/bands:

1. Lady Gaga
2. Justin Beiber
3. Beyonce
4. Taylor Swift
5. Chris Brown

Branded destinations — the top five search terms:

1. Disney World
2. Disneyland
3. Great Wolf Lodge
4. Walt Disney World
5. Universal Studios Orlando

Top TV show searches — the top five from the Television category:

1. American Idol
2. Young and the Restless
3. Dora the Explorer
4. Dancing with the Stars
5. Days of our Lives

• Television — The top generic search term was “hulu” within the Television category.
• Sports — The top searched-for athletes were Tiger Woods, Danica Patrick and Brett Favre. The top searched for sports team was the Dallas Cowboys.

If you are interested in more top 2011 data visits and fastest-moving searches, visit: http://www.hitwise.com/us/registration-pages/top-online-trends-2011