Apparently I’m the most searched British man!
Well spank me lightly with a shammy leather and call me Arthur! Google’s just revealed its list of the most consistently searched ‘celebrities’ in the UK over 2013 and I managed to hit 7th place. Top of the tree is US celebrity Kim Kardashian. I suspect the difference is with me people want to see my tips, while they want to see her… anyway enough of that.
Here’s the ranking list, and of course, I’m chuffed.
1. Kim Kardashian
2. One Direction
3. Miley Cyrus
4. Justin Bieber
5. Kate Middleton
6. Taylor Swift
7. Martin Lewis
8. Beyonce (i)
9. Andy Murray
10. Harry Styles
I believe (though haven’t fully confirmed) that the difference between this list and the people list, is that that one is about trending – in other words short term peaks of search – while this one is about long term consistency.
It does leave open the tricky concept of ‘what is a celebrity?’. It’s certainly not something I view myself as (nor Kate Middleton). I think there’s a difference between being known and being a celeb – but we’ll ignore such sophistry for now.
Let’s take out the Americans
When I look at the list, what I’m surprised at is how few home grown Brits are on it. So purely for fun, (and to appease my competitive spirit) let’s take out the Americans:
1. One Direction
2. Kate Middleton
3. Martin Lewis
4. Andy Murray
5. Harry Styles
Now in my view, I think it’s arguable that you can’t count One Direction as a ‘celebrity’ as they are a band (or more accurately a brand), and this is evidenced by Harry Styles’ own appearance in his own right.
So does that make me the most searched British man in the UK?
Don’t worry, I know this isn’t actually about me
Of course, I’m fully aware this is far less about my popularity and more people using my name as a shortcut in Google to get to this very site. In a list of interest in me as a person, I suspect I’d be looking up at many reality TV stars, glamour models and comedians – in fact I wouldn’t be that far ahead of many politicians!
Yet it at least does show the importance of money matters to the UK public, and that it’s something they care about and are willing to act on. That interest was something we used last year to push to get financial education on the national curriculum in England (from September 2014). And being the conduit to that is something I’m very proud of.
While this appearance is of course welcome (who wouldn’t like it?), it’s interesting some papers have viewed this as a ‘surprise’. Of course when you run a big website as I do, you’re used to seeing lots of data.
In the past, Hitwise ran an analysis. I hit number 1 in its list in 2009, and in its last survey I hit number 2 in 2010 – though it’s tough to directly compare as that was based on ISP use not actual Google searches.
In any case, the most important thing to say at the end of this – if you’ve made it this far – is thank you very much to all who use the site, search to get here, and continue to show interest both in saving themselves money and the consumer campaigns we run.
