Current Google Insights trends: Michelle Obama, Black Friday sales

(AFP PHOTO/Mandel NGAN)

Searches for America's first lady, Michelle Obama, have risen to the top of the trending topics on Google Insights on November 27 at 9:30 AM GMT. (Correction on sahadan)

Approximately two weeks ago an unflattering photo started to appear at the top of Google's Image search when the search term "Michelle Obama" was used. The offending photo had an ape's face superimposed over the top of that of Michelle Obama.

When the photo originally appeared internet search users complained to Google and the image was removed from the search results - but only on the grounds that the website hosting it was also hosting malware viruses. So when the image started to appear on other websites two weeks ago, it was once again included in Google's image search results.

The image has since been removed from most of the websites hosting it but continues to generate public interest, with searches for Michelle Obama increasing by more than 2,500 percent during the last week.

Top searches related to the Michelle Obama image include, "obama monkey", "monkey michelle obama," "michelle obama offensive" and "michelle obama racist."

The term "Black Friday sales" has been appearing in the Google Insights list of rising searches over the past week in anticipation of the November 27 Black Friday sales.

The search terms with the most significant growth worldwide in the last seven days as measured by Google Insights, recorded on November 27 at 9:30 AM GMT are:

1. michelle obama (+2,650%)
2. black friday sales (+400%)
3. taylor lautner ( +200%)
4. black friday (+170%)
5. thanksgiving (+140%)
6. black friday 2009 (+120%)
7. new moon (+110%)
8. robert pattinson (+60%)
9. food network (+60%)
10. sahadan (+50%) ('midfielder' in Turkish)