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Google gave the United States court a rare peak under its skirt this week during the US v. Google antitrust trial after they were forced to disclose a list of search queries that generate the most revenue.

Only covering one week in September, the list ranked the top search queries by revenue generated during that time, and even though it’s rather predictable, it’s one of the only times this kind of information has been made public.

Only after Judge Amit Mehta urged both sides during deliberations to be “more open with facts and data”, did Google relent and provide the information. There are a lot of ‘Redacted’ parts, and it only lists US searches, but it’s still interesting stuff. You can peruse it here.

Only about 20% of search queries on Google have ads. These are the “commercial queries”, and that’s where the money is. You’re not planning on buying something when you type “is elvis alive?”, but you might be on the lookout for a service provider when you search “cheap car insurance”. On these queries, companies pay good money to be the first advert that appears.

There are some inquiries on the list though, such as “xfinity,” “hulu,” and “uber”, that people might simply use to find a target website and not to buy anything, and the prevalence of iPhone searches is likely due to the launch of the new iPhone after the date of this list. The US top ten looks like this:

• iphone 8
• iphone 8 plus
• auto insurance
• car insurance
• cheap flights
• car insurance quotes
• direct tv
• online colleges
• at&t
• hulu

According to The Verge, ‘most high-revenue queries are for things that typically have high customer-acquisition costs but high value over time. The sweet spot for Google, it appears, is right in the middle: a popular search query that overlaps with a competitive, expensive industry’.

You can find more info on the US v. Google antitrust trial here, but as Google CEO, Sundar Pichai, is quoted as saying: “Google isn’t evil, it’s just a business”.

[source:theverge]