Google has revealed that the names most commonly typed into its search engine were those of social networking sites Bobo and MySpace.

Other highly rated words, like "video" - which was found to be the seventh most entered - is seen as reflecting the growing popularity of video sharing sites like Metacafe and YouTube.

This year's biggest global sporting event, the football World Cup, came third in the most-searched list, followed in sixth place by online encyclopaedia Wikipedia.

Meanwhile on Google's news search service, hotel heiress Paris Hilton was the most popular entry, followed by Orlando Bloom, cancer and podcasting, it has been revealed.

Among the most commonly asked questions was "Who is Borat?" and others relating to drugs and Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.

Earlier this year, Google bought YouTube, the popular video sharing site, in a deal worth over a billion US dollars.