You’re already well-schooled on how Google self-censors certain words from its Google Instant search results, because typing in the first few characters of “bisexual” and “lesbian” are likely to bring up some NSFW results, thanks to porn companies’ excellent SEO. But Yahoo’s new search trend product Yahoo! Clues also thinks the homos are too risque to play.
Yahoo Clues, which lets users “explore how people are using Yahoo! Search”, allows you to enter multiple search terms and compare which is a more popular query. The tool is actually pretty cool: You can break down results by age, gender, income, geography … it’s basically a mini-data mining app for consumers.
Unless you want to know who’s searching for a gay.
Yahoo Clues brings up zero results for the search term gay, though lesbian, bisexual, transgender, fag, faggot, homosexual are all available for your curiosity. That’s how we found out more people are searching for “fag” than “faggot,” “lesbian” than “dyke,” and “Madonna” than “Kylie.” (Also, the people most often searching for “fag” live in Ohio and Michigan, are male, and earn between $25-$50k per year.)
How about we take this to the next level?
Our newsletter is like a refreshing cocktail (or mocktail) of LGBTQ+ entertainment and pop culture, served up with a side of eye-candy.
Most curiously: while gay is banned, gays is not. Strength in numbers?
Joe
“New data is being continuously added.” Maybe they just haven’t gotten there yet… I really doubt they’re trying to single us out.