BEERS, BETS, BANTAMS & BLEACH: The dramatic shift in what Australians now search for online

Being stuck at home has Australians rethinking what they’ll do with their time, prompting dramatic changes in what they’re searching for online.

And our obsession with chickens, which led to toilet paper-levels scarcity for anyone looking to buy a live bird for the backyard chook shed. Searches for poultry farms and dealers increased by 362%, while the hunt for poultry supplies rose by 140%, including a 400% increase in the ACT, alongside a 212% jump in searches for for egg merchants, including 500% in Tasmania.

Yellow’s Chief Revenue Officer Elise Balsillie said one particular increase surprised her.

“There has been a 111% increase in searches for dog breeders. I guess for young families at home there is nothing more distracting than caring for a puppy. It would be a great time to put the training in as we are pretty much housebound,” she said.

The biggest increase for dog breeders was in NSW (143%) followed by 134% in the ACT and 122% in Victoria.

And the NBN is also on our minds, according to Balsillie.

“People at home also seem to be getting frustrated with their internet speeds. For the first time we have had a 43% increase in searches for internet service providers, with a 200% increase in the ACT and 100% in Tasmania,” she said.

Yellow, the former Yellow Pages, is now a digital business and has around 1.5 million SMEs listed on it.

Here are the biggest search increases, by state, that Yellow monitored over the past week.