LADY Gaga’s online popularity continues to increase over that of diva Beyonce and US socialites Kim Kardashian and Paris Hilton, indicating that quirkiness can trump sexiness.

Gaga has skyrocketed to become three times more searched than any of her peers in 2010, showing that more persons worldwide are searching for news and music about Gaga than ever.

During April, for every 100 persons searching for Gaga, 34 searched for Beyoncé, 28 for Kardashian and 10 for Hilton according to data from US-based search engine Google analysed by the Sunday Observer.

Multi-platinum artiste, Gaga, feeds her popularity with antics including unconventional wardrobes and performances. In fact, Lady Gaga’s 2010 search traffic has increased 20 per cent relative to her volume in 2009, which meant that her lead over Beyoncé’s search volume increased from two to one towards three to one over the period. Beyoncé, one of the Internet’s most popular personalities, is far more popular than Hilton and Kardashian. Beyoncé was a mega-star throughout the millennium whilst Hilton, Kardashian and Gaga came to international prominence some seven, four and two years a go respectively.

The voluptuous Kardashian’s online popularity swelled beyond Hilton initially in March 2009 and has increased the lead to date. Specifically, her search volume was equal to Hilton in 2009 but in 2010 rose towards two to one in favour of Kardashian.

Google Trends analyses a portion of Google web searches to compute the quantity of searches for terms relative to the total number of searches done on Google over time. Online search volume has significance as it reflects, in part, the fluctuations in online popularity of a personality. A personality’s online traffic usually jumps leading up to an album launch or sex video or socialite news. Kardashian and Hilton both had leaked sex videos which preceded the rise of their separately popular reality shows in the US.