Like net surfers around the world, Australians prowl for news about their favourite celebrities yet beyond that search engine traffic has been clogged this year by queries about love.

2011 will soon pass into history as the year that marked the departure of tech icon and Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, which according to Google's annual "zeitgeist" list, naturally dominated online searches in Australia in the minutes, hours and even weeks after his death as Aussies mined for details on the figure who revolutionised gadget designs and making.

Jobs left behind iPhones, iPads and before them the now classic music player iPod, where music produced by our favourite artists are stored for convenient access and instant play.

That device undoubtedly popularised controversial British singer Amy Winehouse, who according to Google, became more interesting to her Australians when she suddenly dropped dead, sparking many to tap on their keyboards in search of clarifications on what really killed the edgy soulful singer.

Australians and the world reacted in the similar way during Winehouse's demise, whose death eclipsed, in terms of keen Aussie interest, that of Osama bin Laden.

Years of search for bin Laden, blamed by the United States for the deaths of thousands of Americans, led to blank walls not until his traces led the U.S Navy SEALs to his unlikely hideout - a residential area right in the heart of Pakistan, with his sprawling compound not too far from houses owned by the Asian country's retired military officials.

Also nearby was Pakistan's military academy, yet those damning details failed to attract much curiosity among Australians, Google said, at least not in the magnitude that they reacted when Winehouse died or when the rampaging tsunami waves swallowed the northeast coastlines of Japan in March.

Seemingly unmindful of the plausible threats of nuclear fallout coming from Japan, one of the many woes the Japanese suffered when an epic quake struck their country, Australians, according to Google, were largely preoccupied by celebrity news - rumours about their deaths and the scandals they generated - or the latest gadget that Apple was mulling to release.

Prior to Jobs' death, iPhone 5 queries have been typed by Aussies, which was then replaced by iPhone 4S when the American firm decided that affixing the number '5' is not yet the moment for its bestselling smartphone.

It appears, however, that the prevalence of social networking sites, online games, and the headline-hogging celebrities (and some politicians) failed to dampen Australia's interest on the most basic question of all - 'What is love?'

Searching for the meaning of love, according to Google, does not automatically make Australians as the most romantic lot in the world.

According to Google spokesman Johnny Luu, the list also suggests that many Aussies, possibly the young ones, are confused by the dynamics governing love or just plain clueless of its inner-workings.