MetaCrawler Top Search Terms: September 1998
Shows the most popular search terms on the MetaCrawler meta search engine
Shows the most popular search terms on the MetaCrawler meta search engine
Below are the most active keywords searched for on go2net’s MetaCrawler, the web’s most-used metasearch tool. MetaCrawler searches AltaVista, Excite, Infoseek, Lycos, WebCrawler, and Yahoo simultaneously. The terms are provided by go2net. For further information, and for permission to use this information, please contact [email protected].
(Note: MetaCrawler does not yet report search phrases. For example, the list will not show how many times people searched for “Lost In Space,” though individual words such as “lost” and “space” might appear apart from each other. The commentary below each chart makes some educated guesses at search terms that may have occurred.)
The chart below shows the top 15 keywords which have risen the most on MetaCrawler from the previous month.
| Top 15 Gainers – Sept. 1998 | ||
| Term | Rank | Change |
| starr | 31 | +4682 |
| georges | 990 | +4011 |
| kenneth | 511 | +3417 |
| indians | 812 | +1760 |
| ken | 399 | +1334 |
| halloween | 743 | +1178 |
| congress | 655 | +1093 |
| president | 827 | +970 |
| ancient | 651 | +896 |
| crawford | 533 | +753 |
| native | 910 | +739 |
| biography | 826 | +716 |
| manson | 701 | +642 |
| culture | 917 | +642 |
| marilyn | 903 | +551 |
| 99 | 650 | +518 |
| math | 857 | +516 |
| rainbow | 918 | +505 |
| nfl | 355 | +503 |
| korn | 891 | +500 |
The political scandal in Washington was on many people’s minds, with searches reflecting the Kenneth Starr report (Ken Starr report) and terms involving Congress and President Clinton.
Hurricane Georges blew into the top results, while seasonal interest in Halloween moved that term up as a gainer.
Sports fans were after NFL news and perhaps the Cleveland Indians.
Other areas of interest were ancient civilizations, native culture, the bands Marilyn Manson and Korn, possibly the game Madden 99, Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six,
The chart below shows the top 15 keywords which have dropped the most on MetaCrawler from the previous month.
| Top 15 Losers – Sept. 1998 | ||
| Term | Rank | Change |
| camping | 1862 | -979 |
| lords | 1476 | -512 |
| parks | 1363 | -478 |
| warzone | 841 | -460 |
| cams | 1282 | -401 |
| kombat | 1217 | -375 |
| directx | 1266 | -350 |
| mccarthy | 1131 | -341 |
| mission | 1142 | -328 |
| mortal | 1066 | -325 |
| boats | 1097 | -312 |
| cruise | 1265 | -306 |
| rentals | 1030 | -264 |
| fighter | 1043 | -259 |
| rent | 1040 | -250 |
| breakfast | 1158 | -249 |
| nicole | 1093 | -245 |
| genesis | 960 | -234 |
| jenny | 544 | -204 |
| sable | 878 | -201 |
With summer over, no one was much interested in camping in national parks anymore. Likewise, interest in bed and breakfast places, rentals, and perhaps boats for rent dropped.
On the software front, DirectX dropped in interest, as did the games WWF War Zone, Mortal Kombat, Mission Impossible, Street Fighter and interest in Sega Genesis. Web cams also dropped in interest.
Proving that fame is fleeting, TV star Jenny McCarthy dropped in popularity, as did Nicole and porn star Tracy Lords and the WWF’s Sable.