What is the most common element on the internet?



  •  You've seen lists before of the most common elements in the universe, most common in the earth's crust, in the human body and so on. About two years ago I decided to find out which elements most frequently name-checked on web pages.  So, using the traditional yardstick of approximate number of Google search hits, I entered the names of each of the first 112 elements one-by-one, recorded the counts, and sorted the list in descending order.

    1.      gold
    2.      tin
    3.      iron
    4.      platinum
    5.      aluminum
    6.      silver
    7.      copper
    8.      neon
    9.      lead
    10.     silicon
    11.     oxygen
    12.     nickel
    13.     zinc
    14.     sodium
    15.     calcium
    16.     radium
    17.     carbon
    18.     cobalt
    19.     hydrogen
    20.     nitrogen
    21.     mercury
    22.     magnesium
    23.     palladium
    24.     titanium
    25.     uranium
    26.     chromium
    27.     argon
    28.     chlorine
    29.     sulfur
    30.     lithium
    31.     cadmium
    32.     selenium
    33.     manganese
    34.     phosphorus
    35.     rhodium
    36.     iodine
    37.     arsenic
    38.     xenon
    39.     boron
    40.     potassium
    41.     helium
    42.     krypton
    43.     barium
    44.     vanadium
    45.     molybdenum
    46.     zirconium
    47.     neodymium
    48.     tantalum
    49.     germanium
    50.     strontium
    51.     thorium
    52.     bismuth
    53.     antimony
    54.     gallium
    55.     tungsten
    56.     beryllium
    57.     technetium
    58.     ruthenium
    59.     bromine
    60.     cesium
    61.     niobium
    62.     iridium
    63.     scandium
    64.     radon
    65.     yttrium
    66.     thallium
    67.     promethium
    68.     cerium
    69.     gadolinium
    70.     osmium
    71.     erbium
    72.     lanthanum
    73.     rubidium
    74.     tellurium
    75.     polonium
    76.     samarium
    77.     rhenium
    78.     hafnium
    79.     plutonium
    80.     indium
    81.     fluorine
    82.     actinium
    83.     ytterbium
    84.     holmium
    85.     thulium
    86.     terbium
    87.     astatine
    88.     dysprosium
    89.     lutetium
    90.     americium
    91.     praseodymium
    92.     neptunium
    93.     francium
    94.     nobelium
    95.     einsteinium
    96.     berkelium
    97.     californium
    98.     protactinium
    99.     lawrencium
    100.    dubnium
    101.    rutherfordium
    102.    mendelevium
    103.    seaborgium
    104.    europium
    105.    roentgenium
    106.    hassium
    107.    meitnerium
    108.    curium
    109.    copernicium
    110.    bohrium
    111.    fermium
    112.    darmstadtium

    Rankings will naturally fluctuate over time as pages change, but not to an extent to invalidate the whole enterprise.  Further factors that were ignored to simplify the process:

    • I used only the American spelling for sulfur, cesium and aluminum.  Combining hits for the British spellings would falsely increase the number of hits because pages that give both versions would get counted twice.
    • I also passed over searching separately for combining forms like "chloride".
    • More important, I didn't look for alternative or deprecated names like "wolfram" for "tungsten", "masurium" or "scientium" for "technetium", "brimstone" for "sulfur", or "eka-aluminum" for "gallium".  Sue me.
    • Certain words have meanings with little or no relation to the element: "mercury" and "krypton" are also planets (and the former is a brand of automobile, as is "neon"), "lead" is something you do when you dance, "palladium" is a place where dancing takes place, "iron" is what you do to your tuxedo shirt before you go out dancing, etc.  I chose to leave these in the counts; in most cases the top hits for even common words were nevertheless the Wikipedia articles on the associated elements.

     

    So there you have it.  Gold may be a precious and sought-after commodity most places, but on the internet it's twice as common as tin.



  • @da Doctah said:

    So there you have it.  Gold may be a precious and sought-after commodity most places, but on the internet it's twice as common as tin.

    At current count, there are 4,660,000,000 pages that contain the word "gold" but do not contain the word "metal". It can also stand for The Global Initiative for Chronic Obstructive Lung Disease or Genomes OnLine Database or "gold standard", which has absolutely nothing to do with metals.


  • Trolleybus Mechanic

     Are you taking the density co-efficient into account? A webpage of gold does not weigh the same as a webpage of selenium.


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @Ben L. said:

    "gold standard", which has absolutely nothing to do with metals.

    So. Proof that the American High School Education continues to decline in value?


  • Considered Harmful

    @da Doctah said:

    I used only the American spelling for sulfur, cesium and aluminum.  Combining hits for the British spellings would falsely increase the number of hits because pages that give both versions would get counted twice.

    +"cesium" -"caesium"

    +"caesium" -"cesium"

    +"cesium" +"caesium"



  • @boomzilla said:

    @Ben L. said:
    "gold standard", which has absolutely nothing to do with metals.

    So. Proof that the American High School Education continues to decline in value?


    QFT. Ben L. says some dumb shit, but this is the dumbest in a while.



  • @mikeTheLiar said:

    @boomzilla said:
    @Ben L. said:
    "gold standard", which has absolutely nothing to do with metals.
    So. Proof that the American High School Education continues to decline in value?
    QFT. Ben L. says some dumb shit, but this is the dumbest in a while.

    To be fair "gold standard" is used rhetorically in a way that doesn't have a lot to do with metals even if historically the term did originate there.


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @locallunatic said:

    @mikeTheLiar said:
    @boomzilla said:
    @Ben L. said:
    "gold standard", which has absolutely nothing to do with metals.

    So. Proof that the American High School Education continues to decline in value?
    QFT. Ben L. says some dumb shit, but this is the dumbest in a while.

    To be fair "gold standard" is used rhetorically in a way that doesn't have a lot to do with metals even if historically the term did originate there.

    It metaphorically says that [something] with respect to [whatever makes sense here] is like the metal gold was with respect to money systems. So to be fair in an accurate way (as opposed to whatever you did), it has something to do with metals, even if your average American high school graduate of the 21st Century doesn't understand why.


  • Trolleybus Mechanic

    @boomzilla said:

    So to be fair in an accurate way (as opposed to whatever you did), it has something to do with metals, even if your average American high school graduate of the 21st Century doesn't understand why.
     

    I know. People today don't know shit about how the financial system works when it comes to physical metals.

    Money exists in bank accounts, which are electronic. When I transfer funds, it transfers on wires. The more money I transfer, the more wires it needs-- or more accurately, the more TIME on wires it needs. (It takes longer to transfer $1M than it does, $100k. You can see the numbers transferring on screen from one account to the other).

    Wires are made of copper. So it should be the COPPER standard, not the GOLD standards.



  • Probably <div>, but I hear <span> is pretty commonplace too.

     


  • Trolleybus Mechanic

    @Cassidy said:

    Probably <div>, but I hear <span> is pretty commonplace too.
     

    Man, this would be great if Google Answers were still around. I'd gladly kick in a few bucks to ask them "What is the most common HTML element used in the HTML of pages you've crawled/cached".

    The answer would be "<blink>", and the murder spree would begin, and be justified.

     



  • @Lorne Kates said:

    The answer would be "<blink>", and the murder spree would begin, and be justified.
    <blink> and you're dead.


  • Trolleybus Mechanic

    @HardwareGeek said:

    <blink> and you're dead.
     

    I love you.



  • @Lorne Kates said:

    @Cassidy said:

    Probably <div>, but I hear <span> is pretty commonplace too.
     

    Man, this would be great if Google Answers were still around. I'd gladly kick in a few bucks to ask them "What is the most common HTML element used in the HTML of pages you've crawled/cached".

    The answer would be "<blink>", and the murder spree would begin, and be justified.

     


    I'll do it for free!


  • Trolleybus Mechanic

    @Ben L. said:

    I'll do it for free!
     

    Interesting, for a 2005 survey. Would still like to know the 2013 results.



  • @Lorne Kates said:

    Are you taking the density co-efficient into account? A webpage of gold does not weigh the same as a webpage of selenium.

    But Tungsten weighs very nearly the same as Gold, so you can make a web page out of Tungsten that weighs the same as a web page made of Gold, but at a substantially lower price (Tungsten costs approx $2 an ounce) .

    And you pocket the difference.

    PROFIT!!

     



  • Son, I am dissappoint... I came here to see if there would be anything above 'stupidity' (as 'porn' isn't realy an element) and you're talking about a bunch of atoms...


  • Considered Harmful

    @pnieuwkamp said:

    Son, I am dissappoint... I came here to see if there would be anything above 'stupidity' (as 'porn' isn't realy an element) and you're talking about a bunch of atoms...

    What about the element... of supplies!



  • @Lorne Kates said:

    (It takes longer to transfer $1M than it does, $100k. You can see the numbers transferring on screen from one account to the other).

    Only if you use MovieOS. Plus you have to route it via several overseas intermediate banks which supposedly makes it difficult to trace while MovieOS is able to trace the transfer graphically on your screen.



  • Sorry but am really confused about the movieOS.



  • @louisemgr said:

    Sorry but am really confused about the movieOS.

    Maybe this will help.


  • Trolleybus Mechanic

    @louisemgr said:

    Sorry but am really confused about the movieOS.
     

    Put it on your resume, and you'll get a whole new world of job calls!




  • @Ben L. said:

    @louisemgr said:
    Sorry but am really confused about the movieOS.
    Maybe this will help.

    this would be better...chrome for android wouldn't let me post that and Firefox doesn't really like the MCE.

     

     



  • @Zemm said:

    this would be better...
     

    How dare you link to that putrid stain on webcomics which is userfriendly?



  • @dhromed said:

    @Zemm said:

    this would be better...
     

    How dare you link to that putrid stain on webcomics which is userfriendly?

    Did I misread the reference to MovieOS?



  • @Zemm said:

    Did I misread the reference to MovieOS?
     

    I don't care about any of that, I just hate you for linking the bane of comics and humor.


  • Considered Harmful

    @dhromed said:

    @Zemm said:

    Did I misread the reference to MovieOS?
     

    I don't care about any of that, I just hate you for linking the bane of comics and humor.


    I thought Mandatory Fun Day held that title.



  • @joe.edwards said:

    Mandatory Fun Day



  • @joe.edwards said:

    I thought Mandatory Fun Day held that title.
     

    MFD was better.



  • @Cassidy said:

    Probably <div>, but I hear <span> is pretty commonplace too.

     

     

     

    Actually that hour would go to <p>

     


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