Giving a comprehensive look at the top searches of 2008, Google on Wednesday released its “2008 Year-End Zeitgeist” – the company’s brain scan of the world’s Internet users. Similar lists focusing on the most popular searches have also been published by Ask.com and Yahoo.

However, instead on focusing on the most popular searches, Zeitgeist’s results are listed as “Fastest Rising”, meaning that the popularity of top terms is contrasted against that of the previous year. As such, subjects pertaining to pornography and gambling have been framed out of the image.

Saying that Zeitgeist means ‘the spirit of the times’, a Google spokesperson explained in an e-mail that Google strives to capture this spirit by exploring the new and exciting search terms for the year. Though searches for adult keywords are somewhat constant and popular, they do not define the Zeitgeist for any year.

The spokesman added: “We apply the same kinds of filters to the Zeitgeist that we use for SafeSearch, so no adult keywords are included. We have also removed duplicate entries, including misspellings. Additionally, we remove any spammy results.”

The “fastest rising” search in the US on Google Image Search and on Google News featured Alaska Governor Sarah Palin’s name. Other popular image searches in the US followed in the order thus - Obama; twilight; Miley Cyrus; and Joker. In fact, Palin also topped the list of fastest rising searches globally, while President-elect Barack Obama was sixth on the global list.

The top economic queries in the US included: financial crisis; depression; bailout; mortgage crisis; Wall Street; oil; stock market; subprime; credit crisis; and housing crisis.