TorrentFreak | BitTorrent Zeitgeist: What People Searched for in 2013

[FAGuru]

Each and every day hundreds of millions of people scour their favorite BitTorrent search engines for content to download. But what are all these people looking for? Today we present the BitTorrent Zeitgeist 2013, a list of the 50 most searched for phrases and keywords on one of the most-used public BitTorrent indexes during the past year.

During December, all self-respecting search engines produce an overview of the most popular search terms of the past year.

These lists give insight into recent trends, and in 2013 Nelson Mandela, Paul Walker and iPhone 5s were the top trending searches on Google.

But what about torrent search engines? With billions of searches every year it’s worth taking a look at the most-entered keywords on the dominant file-sharing network.

There is no central database of searches available, but Kickass.to, one of the top three torrent sites in terms of visitors, was kind enough to share the most popular search terms of 2013 with us. This list is based on millions of searches and gives an indication of what people were looking for on BitTorrent networks during the last 12 months.

Topping the lists this year is YIFY, which refers to the popular movie release group. The group has millions of dedicated followers who use the ‘YIFY’ tag to find its recent releases. The movies World War Z and Iron Man 3 complete the top three.

The top 10 contains three other movie title related searches: Man of Steel, Star Trek Into Darkness and Now You See Me. The search term 2013, often used to find recent movies, is listed in sixth place.

Traditionally, TV-shows are much sought after on BitTorrent as well, and it’s no different this year. Breaking Bad, Game of Thrones and Dexter made it into the top 10, followed byThe Walking Dead and Suits further down the list.

Adult related searches are surprisingly absent among the popular search terms, and the same is true for music and game searches. The only non-video search in the top 50 is Windows 8 in 40th place.

Finally, it’s worth mentioning that ITA, a term used to find Italian content and the most searched for keyword in 2011, dropped out of the top 50 entirely. This can be explained by the fact that KickassTorrent was blocked by all Italian Internet providers last year.

Below is the full list of the 50 most-entered search phrases on Kickass.to (minus site specific searches). This list will be different for each torrent site, but we assume that the top searches will be popular on other indexes as well.

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1. yify
2. world war z
3. iron man 3
4. breaking bad
5. man of steel
6. 2013
7. game of thrones
8. Star Trek Into Darkness
9. now you see me
10. dexter
11. pacific rim
12. the lord of the rings appendices
13. despicable me 2
14. this is the end
15. french
16. jack reacher
17. the walking dead
18. oblivion
19. a good day to die hard
20. elysium
22. suits
22. fast and furious 6
23. arrow
24. true blood
25. the conjuring
26. after earth
27. White House Down
28. Django Unchained
29. percy jackson sea of monsters
30. 2 guns
31. gangster squad
32. olympus has fallen
33. under the dome
34. jack the giant slayer
35. warm bodies
36. life of pi
37. pain and gain
38. Hansel and Gretel 2013
39. spartacus
40. windows 8
41. grown ups 2
42. 1080p
43. hindi
44. red 2
45. skyfall
46. the hobbit
47. movie 43
48. argo
49. how i met your mother
50. telugu