With the news about swine flu in the media swinging from one extreme to the other, the panicked American public turned to the trusty Google for info. Even TV and cable news were using internet stats for their data, and when the government chipped in and suggested people track the progress of the H1N1 virus, people started searching online with even more alacrity.
Queries like “swine flu symptoms” and “swine flu” were the heaviest searched – crowning the list of rising queries in Google Trends.
Most searchers opted for a click through to cdc.gov, the Center for Disease Control website. Others decided to trust the dubious credibility of Wikipedia, which came in as the second most visited swine flu-related site.
The 10 most visited sites were, in order of most hits for swine flu related queries:
1. www.cdc.gov
2. www.wikipedia.org
3. News.google.com
4. News.yahoo.com
5. www.myspace.com2
6. www.cnn.com
7. www.yahoo.com
8. www.pandemicflu.gov
9. www.facebook.com
10. www.who.int
Thanks to the governmental nod, however, many searchers wound up their internet journey at Google’s Flu Trends site, which tracked certain search terms and IP addresses and delivered a look at how the pandemic was spreading. About 213,000 people viewed the CDC’s closed captioned YouTube video about the virus.
The government even Twittered, making this the White House’s first official use of the social media network since the new administration took over. It simply directed followers to the new CDC website to more about swine flu and prevention.
Tags: CDC, H1N1, swine flu, White House