Do you know the number one pest keyword search in Australia? We’ve pulled national and state data from Google Keyword planner to see the number of searches for the 19 most common pests.
And the number one pest search across Australia is…?
Spiders … with bed bugs a close second!
One way to see what the top pests are in an area is to look at the number of online searches for that particular pest – cockroaches, ants, termites, etc. Admittedly, pest keywords are a very general and not necessarily commercial search term, but it does provide a general weighting as to the relative importance of the various pests.
We’ve pulled the data from Google Keyword Planner to give you the ranking of the key pests in Australia, but also for individual states and territory (Table 1).
Table 1: Top pest keyword searches ranked from most to least searched (Google Keyword Planner, March 2019)
PEST | Average monthly searches (Australia) | Australia | NSW | QLD | VIC | WA | SA | TAS | ACT | NT |
spider | 27100 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
bed bug | 22200 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 |
cockroach | 14800 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 4 | 4 | 3 |
mosquito | 12100 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 5 | 3 | 3 | 4 | 4 |
silverfish | 9900 | 5 | 5 | 4 | 6 | 5 | 3 | 4 | 4 | 7 |
wasp | 9900 | 5 | 5 | 7 | 4 | 3 | 6 | 4 | 3 | 7 |
termites | 6600 | 7 | 7 | 6 | 8 | 7 | 7 | 14 | 7 | 5 |
ants | 5400 | 8 | 9 | 8 | 9 | 7 | 7 | 7 | 10 | 5 |
rats | 5400 | 8 | 11 | 11 | 6 | 11 | 10 | 7 | 14 | 11 |
ticks | 5400 | 8 | 8 | 8 | 12 | 7 | 12 | 12 | 8 | 12 |
mice | 4400 | 11 | 11 | 11 | 9 | 11 | 10 | 12 | 10 | 7 |
millipede | 4400 | 11 | 11 | 10 | 9 | 7 | 7 | 7 | 10 | 12 |
slaters | 4400 | 11 | 9 | 11 | 14 | 11 | 17 | 7 | 8 | 15 |
fleas | 3600 | 14 | 14 | 14 | 14 | 14 | 12 | 7 | 17 | 15 |
rodent | 3600 | 14 | 14 | 14 | 12 | 16 | 15 | 14 | 14 | 12 |
flies | 2900 | 16 | 16 | 16 | 17 | 14 | 12 | 14 | 17 | 7 |
pantry moths | 2900 | 16 | 16 | 17 | 17 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 14 | 18 |
carpet beetle | 2400 | 18 | 18 | 18 | 14 | 16 | 15 | 17 | 10 | 15 |
clothes moths | 590 | 19 | 19 | 19 | 19 | 19 | 19 | 18 | 19 | 18 |
The top five pest searches in Australia are for spiders, bed bugs, cockroaches, mosquitoes and silverfish. Probably bed bugs at number two and silverfish at number five will be a surprise for some? Maybe more so that wasps, termites and ants and positions six, seven and eight.
The number of searches will vary by month and by state. For example, wasps get more searches in Tasmania, Victoria, WA and the ACT, at least partially driven by the presence of European wasps in these states.
Not surprisingly termites get relatively more searches in QLD and NT – the areas of higher termite pressure.
If you’re not already using it, if you’re doing your own SEO work and online advertising, it’s certainly worth getting to know the Google Keyword Planner.
Phil Ridley, Director, Bug Doctor Media