All you need is love… and Google

Cupid’s arrows are shooting through the air finding their mark – or missing it completely – depending upon which side of the fence you stand. What is for certain though, is that it’s definitely that time of year again. With Valentine’s Day already here, Google Zeitgeist (a tool that provides insights into internet search trends) has revealed some curious and surprising results…

For South Africans the most popular search terms around “love” have been “lyrics”, “quotes” and “love poems” – which seems to indicate there are still a few old school romantics out there.

Surprisingly, the most interest for the search term ‘valentine’s day’ originates from Gauteng with ‘valentine’s day ideas’ coming out tops as a popular search. Results also show that ‘Gautengers’ are the main users looking for love songs on the web.

The search queries that you see as part of Google’s Autocomplete are also a reflection of the search activity of web users – South Africans have been looking for the most romantic things to say to a girl, the most romantic songs of 2010 and the most romantic movies amongst others.

Not sure how to express your love to your significant other? Why not try saying ‘I love you’ in a different language? The most popular languages with South Africans have been Italian, Spanish, French, German, Hebrew and Zulu, with some users looking to find a way to say those three important words in code.