According to an academic research presentation by Amanada Spink, (one of the 'big names' in information science/librarianship geekdom)
the top 10 search Queries in '97 by the public were:
sex
nude
free
pictures
new
university
women
chat
gay
girls
So, in '97 the top ten searches performed on the net were the ten terms above and they revolved around sex and university. Am, I surprised? not really.
Except that in '99 it was:
sex
free
nude
pictures
university
pics
chat
adult
women
new
and in '01 it was
sex
Christmas
nude
pictures
new
pics
music
university
games
porn
Does this prove that in the earleir days of the net, web surfers were generally skeeves* with a limited vocabulary for searching for porn??
That more sophisticated skeeves began searching in '99?
Or that even now, when everyone from my niece to my grandma is using the net, sex is still the top search term and skeeves are now so sophisticated that they finnally use the term porn??
What does everyone else think?
Spink, A, 'Web Search Studies: Approaches and Methods'. Queensland university of technology. Queensland.
*Skeeves= pervs/lecherous persons
