Google home trends: Americans enter to win a dream house, Europe turns to DIY

(HGTV.com)

Almost all the searches for this week's top two Google home trends, "hgtv dream home" and '"hgtv," originated from the US. Other popular searches this week stemmed from Turkey and from the Netherlands, where searches for DIY retailers were popular.

Both top phrases refer to the American cable television network Home and Garden, otherwise known as HGTV, and its associated website. In addition to airing a number of shows related to home improvement, the network is also currently giving viewers a chance to enter into a drawing to win a dream home located in the US city of Stowe, Vermont.

Another American home improvement channel and its associated website - "The DIY Network" - also appeared in this week's Google home trends.

With a 100 percent of searches originating from Turkey, the term " Evkur," number three on this week's chart, most probably refers to Turkish consumer electronics site www.evkurun.com.

Other home improvement sites popular in this week's Google home trends were the Dutch DIY retailer Kwantum ( www.kwantum.nl), American home accessories retailer Ethan Allen ( www.ethanallen.com) and international design group Formica. Though Formica has outlets around the world, this week the searches for the website originated from the United States and Turkey.

American legal drama The Good Wife and the generic term "alarm clock" were in seventh and fourth position respectively.

The Japanese term "?????," in eighth  position, roughly translates as "Daiwa" and refers to property development and brokering agency Daiwa House ( www.daiwahouse.co.jp, in Japanese only).  

The search terms with the most significant growth worldwide in the last seven days as measured by Google Insights under the category Home & Garden, recorded on January 7 at 10:00 AM GMT, are:

01.   hgtv dream home (+1000%)
02.   hgtv (+450%)
03.   evkur (+250%)
04.   alarm clock (+70%)
05.   ethan allen (+60%)
06.   formica (+60%)
07.   the good wife (+60%)
08.   ????? (+60%)
09.   diy network (+40%)
10.   kwantum (+40%)