Although many Top Search Terms of the Year lists tend to be met with not a small amount of criticism mainly because certain analysts feel that search engine giants like Google are not being transparent about their filtering process it’s still intriguing to see which terms made it to the top of the heap.

Removing terms that are perenially popular (such as searches for adult content and Web sites that host free e-mail accounts), these lists do not necessarily reflect what people have typed in the most, but rather, they identify the year’s fastest-growing search terms or top gainers compared to the previous year.

Google.com – Top 10 Searches in 2006
1. bebo
2. myspace
3. world cup
4. metacafe
5. radioblog
6. wikipedia
7. video
8. rebelde
9. mininova
10. wiki
Google News – Top 10 Searches in 2006
1. paris hilton
2. orlando bloom
3. cancer
4. podcasting
5. hurricane katrina
6. bankruptcy
7. martina hingis
8. autism
9. 2006 nfl draft
10. celebrity big brother 2006

Yahoo – Top 10 Overall Searches in 2006
1. Britney Spears
2. WWE
3. Shakira
4. Jessica Simpson
5. Paris Hilton
6. American Idol
7. Beyonce Knowles
8. Chris Brown
9. Pamela Anderson
10. Lindsay Lohan
MSN – Top 10 Overall Searches in 2006
1. Ronaldinho
2. Shakira
3. Paris Hilton
4. Britney Spears
5. Harry Potter
6. Eminem
7. Pamela Anderson
8. Hilary Duff
9. Rebelde
10. Angelina Jolie
AOL – Top 10 Overall Searches in 2006
1. Weather
2. Dictionary
3. Dogs
4. American Idol
5. Maps
6. Cars
7. Games
8. Tattoo
9. Horoscopes
10. Lyrics

Two weeks ago, AT&T has announced the launch of a new directory assistance service available throughout California. The service, AT&T 1-800-YellowPages, gives consumers free access to business listings while providing advertisers the opportunity to reach buyers at a critical moment in their purchasing decisions.

“[The service] works like an audio Yellow Pages to give callers free access to local and nationwide business listing information from any phone,” said David Huntley, senior vice president of AT&T Customer Information Services, in a press release.

“We received positive feedback about 1-800-YellowPages during our recent market trial and are excited about expanding this service to California residents. For area businesses, we’re helping them reach potential customers who are in need of a service and are ready to make a purchasing decision.”

A caller who dials 1-800-YellowPages is able to receive a listing for a specific business, or listings for a type or category of business. They will hear short audio ads before receiving the number or, when available, before being connected directly to the business that they select. The service is accessible from landline and any mobile phone.

Although it was not explicitly mentioned in the release, writes Greg Sterling in his Screenwerk blog, PPCall [Pay Per Call] is the primary ad model in the new AT&T offering. Indeed, mobile is really where PPCall is starting to take off. Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft are also all now offering PPCall advertising on mobile devices.

As all the major carriers and search engines attempt to develop mobile local search and mobile search capabilities, the average person is already familiar (and comfortable) calling Directory Assistance and will likely embrace such services with open arms.

Voice is a much more intuitive and, in some ways, efficient interface than those otherwise available through the phone keypad  even if it’s a full Qwerty keypad, Sterling added. We are likely heading to a very segmented mobile local search market where some people use mobile search on smartphones, some use SMS query systems, and some use voice and Free-DA offerings. In the end, ease of use and efficiency will determine which of these will prevail.

Search Engine Journal recently published an entry comparing the recently launched Google Hot Trends with the more established Yahoo Buzz Index. Both services indentify and analyze the search term behavior of Internet users.

According to the official Google blog, Hot Trends is a a new feature of Google Trends for sharing the the hottest current searches with you close to real time. The brand new service identifies peaks in search term behavior, zeroing in on the fastest rising terms of the day, discarding popular terms like Sex or MySpace in an attempt to document what people are interested in from day to day.

Each term listed comes with the time of peak, trends chart, and an overview of its mention on Google News, Google Blog Search, and Web Results.

Yahoo, on the other hand, has been tracking daily jumps in search behavior for the past seven years through its Buzz Index.  Although Yahoo’s Buzz Index does not do daily archives like Google’s Hot Trends, it does offer search trends by different categories such as sports and television, declining search terms, analysis of data, and the Buzz Log which breaks down daily trends and tries to give reasons for them, writes Loren Baker of Search Engine Journal.

More than being a fun website where you can view the day’s top search queries, Google’s Hot Trends and Yahoo’s Buzz Indez are useful tools which can track the efficacy of traditional or offline marketing. These so-called trends tools will ultimately improve and become important to marketers as they coordinate campaigns across traditional and Internet media.

Jupiter Research recently projected that by 2011, the Internet would influence a trillion dollars of offline U.S. retail spending. While the figure may slightly exaggerated or overblown, it is somewhat directionally correct. Search is the first and most commonly used tool by consumers in shopping mode.

As these trends tools of Google and Yahoo are refined and become more accurate, they will clearly show how consumers are responding to traditional media campaigns, as well as geographically indentify where such responses are arising from. That information alone is incredibly valuable.

Success with new media (which was the catchphrase of IBM’s recent report on the Media Divide) is all about tapping into the decidedly consumer-centric Web 2.0 medium, where content is user-generated and accessed through open platforms.

Take the popular Web 2.0 company, Yelp, for example. The San Francisco-based social networking and user review website hosts an online database of user-generated reviews of local businesses. Visitors interested in locating a specific product or service may search listings by geographic location and ratings, among other fields, to find businesses of particular interest to them. The website also has a forum for online socialization and to discuss local businesses and events.

Their success derives from merging these two components local reviews and social networking. The combination increases web traffic and other usage numbers by making the site more entertaining to use.

The Yelp model has been emulated by many fledging companies as of late, including one in the competitive Canadian market. Last July, n49 Interactive a Toronto based Internet media company launched an innovative new business directory at www.n49.ca which calls on Canadians to rate, review, and share their experiences with local restaurants, retailers and other service providers.

Like Yelp, n49.ca combines a comprehensive local business directory with the power of online social networking. But it also offers something completely new: every n49 member receives a unique URL (username.n49.ca), which features their profile, directory, links to friend’s profiles, favorite listings, and business reviews.

In an interesting move, n49 offers a personal URL to every member, wrote Greg Sterling in his blog, Screenwerk. That approach seeks to get people to take more ownership of the site and promote it to their friends undoubtedly.

N49 also offers a twist on the traditional directory by allowing members to maintain and enhance business listings. Using a wiki type format, members can add or edit company info and remove failed businesses faster than any print directory or automated search engine ever could.

“Canadians have embraced Web 2.0 and its community-based networks, like Facebook, even more than their American counterparts,” said n49 President Rick Silver in a press release. n49.ca is the online version of word of mouth. We have introduced a uniquely Canadian site where anyone north of the 49th parallel can create and share their own local business directory for free.

Googling the search terms Google and sued reveals many results Google Sued Over PageRank Decrease, Google Sued For Click Fraud, Google sued over defamatory postings,  so on and so forth. It’s not the least bit surprising, given that Google is a multi-billion dollar internet company.

But perhaps the most surprising was the result that read ACCC takes Google to court. ACCC, of course, stands for the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission a government regulatory body which is suing the world’s leading search engine for deceptive advertising practices.

The consumer watchdog alleges Trading Post Australia, Google Ireland, Google Australia and Google Inc. were misleading in the search engine’s Sponsored Links section. In 2005, sponsored links titled Kloster Ford and Charlestown Toyota allegedly appeared on Google, but the links allegedly directed users to the Trading Post website. (Both dealerships compete with the Trading Post.) By publishing the links, Google allegedly engaged in misleading and deceptive conduct.

Google also continues to allegedly fail to distinguish sponsored links from organic search results. According to an ACCC statement: The ACCC understands that it is the first regulatory body to seek legal clarification of Google’s conduct from a trade practices perspective. This is the first action of its type globally.

Google, naturally, hotly denied their alleged misconduct, calling it an attack on all search engines.”

The suit does raise significant questions about commonly accepted search advertising practices, given that this is a government suit, and that ACCC is the first regulatory body to seek legal clarification of Internet giant’s conduct from a trade practices perspective. The other court cases Google is currently embroiled in are only in relation to trademark use.

If the Australian government forces Google to police its ads, it could strike a harsh blow to Google’s business in that country  and other countries, especially in Europe, would be tempted to follow suit, wrote Greg Sterling in Publishing 2.0. Google was able to let a lot of this advertising malfeasance get swept under the rug until now.

The matter will come before the Sydney Federal Court on August 21. It will be interesting to see how all of this plays out.