Top 5
1. Oprah Winfrey
2. Tiger Woods
3. Madonna
4. Rolling Stones
5. Brad Pitt
The list itself can be sorted by:
+ Rank
+ Name
+ Pay
+ Web Hits*
+ Press
+ TV/Radio
* We wish that Forbes would provide more info about "Web Hits" aside from the fact that they are "web mentions on Google press clips compiled by LexisNexis."
If nothing else, we think these issues illustrate some key points when searching for people with many but not all web search engines.
+ We all know that search result totals for all engines can vary from day to day and sometimes from hour to hour. Are these numbers an average over a specific day? Week? Month?
+ Are names being search with or without quotation marks to denote a phrase? For example, notice the difference in totals between "Tom Cruise" and Tom Cruise. If quotation marks aren't being used, an alert result that includes the two words Tom and Cruise could appear as false drops. For example, "Tom Smith, while taking a cruise to the Bahamas..."
+ Are they using additional search terms or removing terms when searching for "Madonna" (the performer) since Madonna can have several meanings. Of course, other authority issues come into play as well. Authority control on the open web is a massive challenge, especially for common names.
+ The "Cast of Grey's Anatomy" and the "Cast of Desperate Housewives" both appear on the list. Was this the actual search or is this a total built on separate searches for each cast member? Was "Cast of xx" searched as a phrase?
+ Duplicate issues. If an alert is being triggered by the same AP or Reuters story does each count as a hit for that celebrity?
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