sumo google search - which countries search sumo

[shimodahito 244]

good day all,

i found a neat google tool that tells which countries have the most searches for a particular word...

so i came up with these findings.

2004 top 10 countries searching for "sumo".

1.mongolia (no surprise)

2.argentina

3.uraguay (big surprise -- any theories?)

4.australia

5.india (big surprise -- any theories?)

6.portugal

7.new zealand

8.singapore

9.united kingdom

10.philippines

2005 top 10 countries searching for "sumo".

1.mongolia

2.argentina (again #2!)

3.uraguay

4.australia

5.estonia (timing fits the emergence of baruto)

6.bulgaria

7.portugal

8.india

9.united kingdom

10.singapore

2006 top 10 countries searching for "sumo".

1.mongolia

2.estonia

3.argentina

4.uraguay

5.thailand (big surprise -- any theories?)

6.australia

7.portugal

8.singapore

9.united kingdom

10.bulgaria

2007 top 10 countries searching for "sumo".

1.mongolia

2.argentina

3.thailand (huh?)

4.norway (huh?)

5.estonia

6.uraguay

7.australia

8.portugal

9.united kingdom

10.india

2008 top 10 countries searching for "sumo".

1.mongolia

2.norway (what does "sumo" mean in norwegian?)

3.argentina

4.estonia

5.thailand

6.india

7.vietnam (big surprise -- any theories?)

8.uraguay

9.australia

10.portugal

2009 top 10 countries searching for "sumo".

1.mongolia

2.norway

3.estonia

4.argentina

5.finland (whatever is hot in norway is catching on in finland)

6.thailand

7.uraguay

8.portugal

9.india

10.australia

i'm guessing several factors for the surprises 1) "sumo" means something else popular in another language, 2) these results only come from people that use google as their search engine, 3) possible vacations from several english speaking sumo fans in the countries listed?

so, i chose a more specific term and got these results

2004-2009 top 10 countries searching for "natsu basho".

1.germany

2.united states

3.turkey (big surprise - what does "natsu basho" mean in turk language?)

4.singapore

5.sweden

6.romania (any theories?)

7.poland

8.netherlands

9.mongolia

10.japan

many new countries, and many new surprises....

and finally a summary for those that understand kanji.

2004-2009 top 10 countries searching for "相撲".

1.japan

2.taiwan

3.hong kong

4.south korea

5.singapore

6.malaysia

7.thailand

8.china

9.australia

10.united states

comments, observations, theories welcome.... enjoy the wait for nagoya!

[Leonishiki 49]

Sumo was also the name of a famous argentinian rock band. Maybe this could explain so many results coming from Argentina and from Uruguay.

Sumo is also a verbal form of the spanish verb "sumar" (to add), but I really don't think too many people look for the word 'sumo' thinking about this.

By the way, what's the name of is this google tool? Just for playing a bit with some other words.

Edited June 27, 2009 by Leonishiki

[wanderer 159]

Very interesting indeed!. Few thoughts.

The odds are that Mongolians use google search on "sumo" only if they are traveling, studying or living abroad. Because, all the TV channels broadcast sumo freely. Also, there so many well known Mongolian websites, on which you can watch the entire basho. I did not really expect so many hits coming from Mongolia. Maybe foreigners living in Mongolia, mostly Japanese behind these numbers? Big numbers coming from Thailand, and Vietnam could be explained for the same reason. There are many Mongolians who live or study temporarily in these countries. It would be great if you could post the actual number of search hits, which will explain a lot. If the hits are in millions or hundreds of thousands, that is probably not associated with Mongolians, because Mongolians are not many. If the number is in few tens of thousands, then effect of Mongolians could be a factor.

[Washuyama 587]

Not sure if it has any bearing, but a couple years ago, Nike debuted it's new "sumo" driver. It's shape was pretty revolutionary and probably drew a number of people to search for it..

[Sasanishiki 57]

2007 Sumo World Championships (amateur sumo) were held in Chiang Mai, Thailand. That might explain that result.

Sumo gets used a fair bit as a company name, brand name, product name, anocronym or some other sort of name. We also need to consider that SUMO (small ubiquitin-like modifier) is a term used often in genetics and academic research. Just try doing a search on google scholar or research databases using sumo in the hope of getting somethign aout the sport we love - much more on genetics and science.

[wanderer 159]

Apparently, Sumo means many thing:

http://www.sumocases.com/

http://www.ontologyportal.org/

http://www.sumopaint.com/app/

...

[Chisaiyama 11]

Also here in the USA we have a chemical products company called Loctite that manufactures a line of glue and adhesive tape products called SUMO GLUE and SUMO Tape.

Really liked that little electric motorbike on the YouTube video,nlooked quite sporty and would be quite economical for simple commuting vs the current gasoline prices. Especially here in sunny central California.

[shumitto 416]

We also need to consider that SUMO (small ubiquitin-like modifier) is a term used often in genetics and academic research.

Those two for the English speaking scientific community. Should you cross academic articles with the word "Sumo", about half of them relates to genetics.

Sumo was also the name of a famous Argentinian rock band. Maybe this could explain so many results coming from Argentina and from Uruguay.

And for downloads it comes on your way. Certainly it explains for the hits in both Argentina and Uruguay.

It's important to remind as well, that sumo in the Portuguese of Portugal means juice, so no surprise here.

Edited June 27, 2009 by shumitto

[Sasanishiki 57]

We also need to consider that SUMO (small ubiquitin-like modifier) is a term used often in genetics and academic research.

Those two for the English speaking scientific community. Should you cross academic articles with the word "Sumo", about half of them relates to genetics.

Yes, that's why I thought the results in India, for example, might be so high.

[Hashira 0]

Sumo is the name of an SUV made by India's Tata motors

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tata_Sumo

[Chininofuji 0]

And in portuguese "sumo" means "Juice". It's because of that why Portugal appears so well positioned.

[Itachi 330]

It seems like we have a pretty good explanation for the results for 'sumo'. How about 'natsu basho'?

The 'natsu basho' list contains mostly countries represented well here at the forum with the exception of Turkey and Romania. I suspect there will be something not sumo related connected to those results.

How about Singapore? I take a bit of interest in seeing where our forum members are from and I don't recall noticing a lot from Singapore. Is there really a big sumo fanbase in that city-state or is it another case of a coincidental and non-sumo related search term?

Singapore is a bit of a hub so maybe there are enough foreigners from countries with sumo fanbases (such as Australia?) to explain this.

[Gusoyama 57]

Also here in the USA we have a chemical products company called Loctite that manufactures a line of glue and adhesive tape products called SUMO GLUE and SUMO Tape.

Also the Sumo line of beanbag chairs.(quite comfy, btw)

[skipisor 0]

It seems like we have a pretty good explanation for the results for 'sumo'. How about 'natsu basho'?

The 'natsu basho' list contains mostly countries represented well here at the forum with the exception of Turkey and Romania. I suspect there will be something not sumo related connected to those results.

Surprising indeed. Well, I don't know about Turkey, but "natsu basho" doesn't sound like anything Romanian so I suppose a few but persistent fans are hanging about. I know there two romanians active in the SumoTalk, and sumo used to be broadcast until last year on romanian eurosport, but I really haven't noticed anyone from turkey.

Natsu basho is pretty "specialised" as a term, so I don't know if it's relevant to the general awareness of a sport. I mean the number of people using it (correctly) as a search term is probably quite low and the results can be skewed by a few people with a fixation :)

[shimodahito 244]

interesting comments.

Mongolia isn't just #1 for google searches in English. It's also #1 for the Cyrillic "Сумо"

2004-2009 TOP COUNTRIES SEARCHING FOR "Сумо"

1.Mongolia

2.Ukraine

3.Belarus

4.Bulgaria

5.Russia

6.Latvia

7.Germany

8.United States

9.Uzbekistan

10.Sweden

what surprised me also was that France didn't make any lists. i think they use the "sumo" spelling and "natsu basho" spelling. they must not be using google. it'd be nice to see if the results would be the same on yahoo or other search engines.

here's another one:

2004-2009 TOP COUNTRIES SEARCHING FOR "banzuke"

1.Estonia

2.Finland

3.United States

4.United Kingdom

5.Canada

6.Japan

7.Spain

8.Germany

9.Brazil

10.France

ahhh. there's france!

"natsu basho" and turkey/romania/poland is still interesting.

here's the web site to create your own searches and research:

www.google.com/insights/search

enjoy,

-shimodahito

[Chiyozakura 127]

Don't forget the nude pictures by Clyde, ehhm, Helmut Newton that were also published as "sumo". These golf stuff is a real pain in the ass, though, as they can be found in many auction sites and in some cannot be distinguished by selection criteria from "real" sumo stuff.

[Sashohitowa 6]

What I am thinking is that the search of "sumo" indicates, let's say, a more general or at least instable interest - interest from a general public, that is not sure what exactly it searches.

I would expect from people who are indeed at least a little interested to learn about sumo is to search something more specific: "sumo results", "sumo rules", "sumo clubs in Slovakia", etc.