GDP is the most misunderstood finance term, Google search data reveals

‘Gross Domestic Product’ (GDP) is the most misunderstood finance term worldwide, with an average of over 165,000 searches each month for its definition.

That’s according to new research by City Index. In this study, the experts utilised search analytics tool, Ahrefs, to discover how often on average the definition of the 50 most common finance terms is searched for each year.

Key findings:

• On average, “GDP definition” is googled over 165k times a month, with 6% of searches coming from the UK.
• Acquisition (130,700 searches a month) and equity (111,400) come in second and third.
• “Capital” places 10^th with 28,000 searches for its definition each month on average, just 100 searches fewer on average than “overhead” (28,100 global searches per month).

The results:

Please find the full data set attached here, including all finance definitions.

Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is the most misunderstood finance term

City Index can reveal that GDP is the most misunderstood finance term with an average of 166,300 monthly searches for ‘GDP definition’. This is over a quarter (27.2%) more searches than ‘acquisition’ in second place with 130,700 monthly searches. ‘GDP meaning’ is Googled most often in India (23% of all searches), the Philippines (12%), the US (12%) and the UK (6%).

*Definition: (GDP) “The total monetary or market value of all the finished goods and services produced within a country’s borders in a specific time period.”

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The finance term, acquisition is the second most searched for, averaging 130,700 monthly Google searches each year. This is 17.3% more than equity in third place with 111,400 monthly searches. Interestingly, 5% of all searches for ‘acquisition definition’ come from the UK.

*Definition: “An acquisition is when one company purchases most or all of another company’s shares to gain control of that company.”

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Equity ranks third with an average of 111,400 monthly searches for its definition, with 6% of these searches coming from the UK. The definition of equity is Googled 16% more than the term principal in fourth place with 96,000 monthly searches.

*Definition: “Equity refers to partial ownership in a company or assets after subtracting all debts that are associated.”

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Capital is the tenth most misunderstood finance term

Ranking in tenth place is the financial term capital with an average of 28,000 searches for its definition each month. Capital is commonly misinterpreted for a similar term ‘asset’ which ranks fifth in our table, with 8% of Google searches for the definition of ‘capital’ coming just from the UK population.

*Definition: “The capital of a business is the money it has available to fund its day-to-day operations and to bankroll its expansion for the future. The proceeds of its business are one source of capital.”

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Methodology: 

1. City Index were keen to find out the financial terms which are most misunderstood worldwide.
2. To do this, a seed list of the 50 most used financial terms were selected from multiple articles such as FinanceBuzz, Capitalbenchmarkpartners.com, Fundera.com and Investopedia.com. The definitions of the financial words were then sourced from Investopedia’s financial term dictionary.
3. City Index then inserted each financial term from the list into the Ahrefs global database, to establish the global monthly average Google searches for the financial terms such as ‘ GDP meaning’ and ‘ Equity definition’.
4. The figures were then multiplied by 12 in order to obtain the average yearly searches.
5. All data was collected in January 2023, and is accurate as of then.

Photo Credit: Shutterstock.com/Wutzkohphoto