Top Searches of 2008
- Britney Spears
- WWE
- Barack Obama
- Miley Cyrus
- RuneScape
- Jessica Alba
- Naruto
- Lindsay Lohan
- Angelina Jolie
- American Idol
As you can see from this list, many people searched for entertainment and election-related topics. Next, Yahoo compiled the top newsworthy searches:
Top News Searches
- Hurricanes
- Caylee and Casey Anthony
- Election 2008
- Pakistan
- Pregnant Man
- China
- Iraq
- Shelley Malil
- Patrick Swayze
- Afghanistan
These news searches reflect the various world conflicts and natural disasters that dominated Yahoo searches; controversial crime cases and celebrity health stories were also popular.
Top Political Searches
This was a big year for political topics in Yahoo search; a presidential election tends to do that. Here are the top politically related searches:
- Barack Obama
- Sarah Palin
- John McCain
- Hillary Clinton
- George Bush
- Ron Paul
- John Edwards
- Mike Huckabee
- Arnold Schwarzenegger
- Mitt Romney
Many Yahoo searches in 2008 focused on celebrity passings, starting with Heath Ledger's tragic death at the beginning of the year.
Searches for Celebrity Deaths
- Heath Ledger
- Bernie Mac
- Paul Newman
- Randy Pausch
- George Carlin
- Estelle Getty
- Tim Russert
- Brad Renfro
- Isaac Hayes
- Boyd Coddington
The Top Yahoo Searches of 2008
It's interesting to look at the year-end compilations of literally millions of search data to see what kind of trends ruled the search engines, and Yahoo's top searches definitely are a good way to get a concise snapshot of what we were interested in this year. Take a look at past Yahoo end of the year searches:

