The Beatles 'bigger than Jesus' on Google

Of course, it's only a bit of fun, but simply because there were more searches for "Beatles" than "Jesus" on Google for a couple of daysdoesn't mean that "the Beatles were bigger than Jesus. Mainly because people don't type the things they like into a search box. Otherwise I'd be constantly harrying Google for coffee and kisses.

And because The Beatles had something new-ish out, you'd probably expect that to have happened. If Jesus had just issued a remastered version of The Bible, or a computer game ("feed 5,000 people using your Wii..."), maybe he'd be doing better.

Not to mention that doing a Google search on one term doesn't mean you have to forswear your love of the subject of another possible search term. Searching on "King Kong" doesn't mean you'd have to abandon your love of "Godzilla".

Still, the Telegraph report does have this interesting paragraph:
Though the graph clearly shows that The Beatles caught the imagination of more people during September than Jesus did, video games experts point out that The Beatles Rock Band has not fared as well in the shops as expected with rival music game Guitar Hero 5 outselling the Fab Four's version.

So, the albums sold nowhere near as well as expected - for all the excuses we keep hearing - and the computer game didn't sell well, either. Perhaps all those searches were people trying to work out what all the fuss was about?

(Graph above showing the relative popularity of the search terms Beatles and Jesus on Google over the past 30 days)