WHAT DO INTERNET users from the Philippines look for? Ask Google and chances are the search giant has an answer. And it even comes with all the bells and whistles.

Case in point was the week of Aug. 6 to 12. The fastest-rising news terms during the period were “NBA” amid reports on Boston Celtics and Miami Heat opening a new season and “UFC” in which the league’s middleweight champion Anderson Silva defended his title.

Coming on their heels were “Playstation 3” after the release of a new update; the US television musical show Glee in anticipation of an all-Britney Spears episode; and “Miss Universe” ahead of the opening of the pageant in Las Vegas participated in by the country’s bet Maria Venus Raj.

The fastest-rising newsmakers for the week were the bemedalled boxer-turned-politician Manny Pacquiao after Congress junked his petition to use the facility of the legislative office to train for an upcoming match and embattled former noontime variety show host Willie Revillame. Mr. Pacquiao was the most-searched personality during the second week of August.

Sharing the search limelight during the period were suspected carjack leader Ivan Padilla who was killed in a shoot-out; Miley Cyrus who won an award at the MTV Teen Choice Awards and NBA star Kobe Bryant who participated in a game on the birthday of US President Barack Obama.

All this information was lumped under a Google service called Zeitgeist, the German term for “spirit of the times.”

Introduced in 2001, it gives a view on global users’ searches, revealing interests and issues for the week, month and year around the world or in a specific country.

“These lists and graphs give us insight into users’ curiosities across a variety of topics, from searches for financial terms to music festivals, popular songs and even favorite mobile carriers,” said Therese Lim, Google global communications and public affairs head for Southeast Asia, in an e-mail interview.

The Zeitgeist works by going through and collating millions of search queries received by the computers of Google each day. Data generated include the fastest-rising Google searches, referring to the terms that have the greatest surge in searches and the most-popular searches which are terms consistently searched for in large volumes per year.

“Zeitgeist offers a glimpse into the spirit of the times. What the world is searching for offers an insight into what’s interesting to people around the world,” said Ms. Lim.

It uses the Google Trends and Insights for Search tools.

“These tools help users keep track of what’s currently on top of people’s minds in a particular place and time,” she said.

Google Trends reveal to users what they have been searching on Google over time. Updated daily, it analyzes how frequently the keyword has been used in Google News and shows in which geographic regions people have searched for them the most.

Insights for Search, on the one hand, lets the user find out more about search trends broken down by geography and time, and lets users compare the popularity in number of searches for different keywords.

Ms. Lim said that an understanding of the broad and particular trends involving users’ searches on the Web is useful for advertisers, marketers, economists and regular people who are interested in knowing more about their world.

Google even makes a YouTube video presentation on the monthly listing presented by Anne Espiritu, a search communications manager of Filipino descent from the search engine office in the US.

In the Philippines, Google has been providing yearend zeitgeist lists since 2007.

Last year, the fastest-rising issue that made headlines in the Philippines was A(H1N1) as 2009 saw the outbreak of a pandemic, with 193 confirmed cases in the country.

To provide Filipinos with an overview of the hot search terms for the year, Ms. Lim said Google divided the queries into seven fastest-rising categories last year which include search terms that have experienced a significant increase in search volume over the year.

The categories are: general, Google News, politicians, personalities, celebrities, travel destinations and OPM (Original Pilipino Music). A separate list was also provided for the top searches for the year.