Current Google Insights trends: "loteria de navidad," "santa tracker"

(AFP PHOTO/ JOSEP LAGO)

On December 29, the Spanish Christmas Lottery has been the top trending topic on Google over the past seven days.

The Spanish Christmas Lottery ( Loteria de Navidad or Sorteo de Navidad, in Spanish) is an extremely popular national lottery game that has been organized every year in Spain since 1812, and is considered the biggest lottery in the world in terms of number of tickets sold and prize money.

All around Spain, cafés, bars, businesses, families, sports clubs and other organizations buy and sell tickets to make a profit, which has also boosted the lottery's popularity. Its official name is now Loterías y Apuestas del Estado and the draw, sung aloud by schoolchildren, is broadcast on national television and radio networks. Internet users in Spain have been looking up the results on Google over the past few days.

The Santa Tracker is an old tradition at NORAD (North American Aerospace Defence Command). Because of a misprint in a telephone number on an advertisement, NORAD's predecessor, CONAD, had to answer children's calls about Santa's gift-giving journey back in 1955. The tradition lives on, and NORAD now uses Google Maps to track Santa around the world.

The search terms with the most significant growth worldwide in the last seven days as measured by Google Insights, recorded on December 29 at 10:00 AM GMT are:

1. loteria navidad 2009 (+4,900%)
2. santa tracker (+3,300%)
3. loteria de navidad (+2,950%)
4. norad (+1,950%)
5. loteria nacional (+1,300%) ("national lottery", in Spanish)
6. merry christmas (+180%)
7. itunes download (+130%)
8. itunes (+100%)
9. program tv (+60%)
10. limewire (+60%)