From Sarah Palin to Icesave: Google's top 2008 search terms revealed

Google has revealed the top search terms for 2008 in its year-end Zeitgeist roundup.

The Zeitgeist explores the billions of search queries Google receives each year to highlight annual trends in topics like entertainment, politics and sport.

Google said the Zeitgeist tools, which use anonymised, aggregated counts of how often certain search queries occur over time, are available all year round.

The unlikely global winner of the fastest rising search term was Sarah Palin, the Alaska governor and the Republican Party's vice-presidential nominee for the US presidential election. Palin came in at number 5 in the UK's list of most searched politicians.

Facebook took top spot as the most popular search term in the UK and iPlayer was the fastest rising.

Google Mail or Gmail did not make it into the top 10 lists for the UK, but Yahoo Mail and Hotmail did.

Fastest rising search terms in the UK

1. iPlayer
2. Facebook
3. iPhone
4. YouTube
5. Yahoo Mail
6. Large Hadron Collider
7. Obama
8. Friv
9. Cam4
10. Jogos

Most searched terms in the UK

1. Facebook
2. BBC
3. YouTube
4. eBay
5. Games
6. News
7. Hotmail
8. Bebo
9. Yahoo
10. Jobs

Most searched politicians in the UK

1. Gordon Brown
2. David Cameron
3. Barack Obama
4. Tony Blair
5. Sarah Palin
6. John McCain
7. George Osborne
8. Alistair Darling
9. Boris Johnson
10. Nicolas Sarkozy

Fastest rising recipe searches in the UK

1. Cupcake
2. Meatballs
3. Rocky road
4. Crumble topping
5. Eton mess
6. Pork belly
7. Rhubarb fool
8. Lemon posset
9. Honeycomb
10. Beer batter

Fastest rising finance-related searches in the UK

1. Icesave
2. Hot UK deals
3. Natwest
4. HMRC
5. HBOS
6. Money saving expert
7. Halifax
8. Barclays
9. RBS
10. Lloyds TSB

Hottest tickets of the year in the UK

1. Oasis
2. Leonard Cohen
3. AC/DC
4. The Ashes
5. Steve Coogan
6. SOS
7. Oliver
8. Gladiators
9. Tina Turner
10. Nickleback

Fastest rising searches globally

1. Sarah Palin
2. Beijing 2008
3. Facebook login
4. Tuenti
5. Heath Ledger
6. Obama
7. Nasza Klasa
8. Wer kennt wen
9. Euro 2008
10. Jonas Brothers