The Questions That Football Fans Are Asking Google

Have you noticed how Google offers suggestions to complete your searches? This is Google Suggest, and it makes the suggestions based on what other people are searching for. As an example, if you type “are man utd” into Google, you’ll be offered suggestions like “are man utd on tv tonight” and “are man utd skint”. Because that’s what people are asking.

So Google is now basically a window into humanity’s search habits. Which is actually a bit scary when you think about it. But I’ll try not to worry about it if you won’t, and in the meantime we’ll try and have some fun with it.

There’s a new site called Web Seer that lets you compare two Google Suggest results at once. It gives you two search boxes, in which you can enter the beginnings of two different search terms, and will then display the Google Suggest results for each. So obviously I used this to compare and contrast what people are asking Google about different football players and leagues. Because why wouldn’t I? Three example results below.

After a bit of experimenting I found that asking “is” produces the best results. As in “is cristiano ronaldo…”.

Here’s what happens when we compare “is leo messi” with “is cristiano ronaldo”:

Seems everyone wants to know if these guys are married and what religion they are. Presumably so they can plan an appropriate wedding after kidnapping them. For some reason there is also a sizeable number of people out there who regularly check with Google to see if Cristiano Ronaldo is dead or alive.

Next up: “is david beckham” vs “is thierry henry”. Not sure why I chose those two. I just did:

Seems there are the same overlapping questions about marriage and religion and their living/dead status. TH14’s race is a popular topic, but who knew so many people cared about David Beckham’s hairline? Interestingly, a thicker arrow means more search results, and seems there are a lot of results dedicated to Beckham’s baldness or otherwise. Fortunately, there aren’t so many results regarding his foreskin.

Last but not least, a comparison between “is MLS” and “is NFL”, which highlights the concerns that fans of the two very different leagues have:

The answer is yes by the way. MLS is in FIFA 2010.

I’d encourage you to give this a go for yourself by visiting WebSeer here. If you find any interesting football comparisons, please share in the comments. But be warned, it gets weirdly addictive.

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Category: World Football