Google's Top Valentine's Day Search Will Shock You

Scary, isn't it? Somehow, on a day when people are supposed to be searching for information on love and romance (or any of the aforementioned Valentine's Day-related topics), a lousy two-year-old movie manages to steal the top spot. To say that this is baffling would be an understatement. The film was, by all accounts, a box office failure. It made money during the first weekend or two and quickly tanked as consumers realized that it was nothing more than a hodgepodge of big stars. What's more, if you perform a Google search for “New Year's Eve,” you will immediately come to the film of the same name, which just happens to be the unofficial sequel to Valentine's Day. In fact, Google is inundated with results for the film; the top result will provide you with show times (if the film is still playing in your area), followed by its IMDb listing, a Wikipedia entry for the actual holiday, a Wikipedia entry for the movie, and a YouTube link to the film's trailer. This is bothersome on so many levels, mostly because it means that people care more about searching for these holiday-themed movies than for the holidays themselves. (Either that or the Hollywood studio behind them found a way to push their films to the top of Google's search results regardless of consumer searching and linking habits.) Sadly, Yahoo! YHOO and Bing MSFT searchers will also encounter the Valentine's Day and New Year's Eve films. Follow me @LouisBedigian