If you remember, back in the early days of Google when you did a search for “French military victories” you would get a result which asked if you meant “French military defeats”. Well it seems the people over at Google Insights for Search may be having a little fun again around the 4th of July.
If you use Insights for Search and type in “hot dog” and look at their results by country searches, the number one result is Hungary. Hey, if they listed it as ‘Hungry’ it would have been more obvious, but to think there were more searches for hot dog in Hungary as opposed to the listed number two – United States, well someone is playing games or the country results have been tampered with.
Hot dog fans should not feel slighted, as French historians were at the earlier attempt at humor. July 4th is a banner day for the tubed meat. It actually has double the search numbers as hamburgers.
When the search location is looked at beef-raising and eating Texas rolls in first for hamburgers. Illinois takes first for hot dogs – those Chicago hot dogs have some legs.
The other big thing associated with the holiday are fireworks. These too get a regional spike – states like New York where you can’t buy them, have much lower search numbers. The search for them spikes about a week before the Fourth.
A major insight to the search terms associated with fireworks shows as many 4th of July searches as straight fireworks ones. Obviously the two are very closely related, but to show the ranking of variations of the date shows the two have a latent semantic relationship.
Now along with the food and fireworks, beer plays an important part in the celebrations. Interestingly, there will be a lot of people playing beer pong throughout the day if search terms associated with beer are an indication. Beer pong tops the searches, while beer pong rules and tables are rising terms.
Within the United States, actually almost only in the US, the popularity of vegan hot dogs are growing, if Search Insights can be used as an indicator. But we have to remember the Hungary thing and take some of these searches with a grain of salt – or a pinch of whatever is used with vegan hot dogs.
Be careful out there as searches for July 4th indicate that injuries spikes this time each year.
Other popular items for the 4th of July weekend fun include popsicles – traffic numbers spike for that tasty little ice treat. If you are celebrating in Arkansas or Tennessee then odds are there will be popsicles – the two top the state regional interest on them.