Google Redefines the Meaning of "Top"

Last week we covered the top ten search terms of 2006, based on the results released by the major search engines. This afternoon on Google's blog, Artem Boytsov let us in on Google's methodology for generating that list.

To come up with this list, we looked at several thousand of 2006's most popular searches, and ranked them based on how much their popularity increased compared to 2005. ("Bebo", for example, had very little traffic in 2005.) We also gave a bit higher score to searches with more traffic. Similarly, our "what is" and "who is" lists are not necessarily the absolute most frequent searches, but rather those that best represent the passing year.

In other words, despite the title ("Top Searches in 2006"), Google's top ten isn't really made up of the most searched for words and phrases.  Rather, it's based mostly on change in popularity, with common words and dirty searches removed, and all in all seems to be pretty subjective.

Still, couldn't they have come up with a better title for the list? How about "Top Gaining Searches" or maybe "An Arbitrary List of Popular Keywords Ordered by Some Undisclosed Algorithm"?

And after Google comes up with a better name for this list, maybe they'll consider telling us what the real 10 most popular search terms were. Probably not, but I imagine that Googlers, like everyone else, probably searched for "Britney Spears" a lot more than they searched for "Bebo".