We’re having a great summer in the UK, which makes a pleasant change from the last couple of years. However, there are downsides to the warm weather and sunshine, not least the risk of sunburn and, in the worst cases, skin cancer.
Searches for skin cancer are up 19% year on year and have increased significantly over the last few months. The chart below illustrates the historical correlation between these searches and the amount of sunshine hours in the UK (source: UK Met Office).

One of the interesting things that we discovered when looking at the search terms variations report for ‘skin cancer’ was the number of people looking for pictures or photos. The table below lists the top 10 skin cancer related terms, and four of them are picture searches.

About Cancer, currently the biggest recipient of traffic from the term ‘skin cancer pictures’, has experienced a 67% increase in UK Internet traffic over the last year, illustrating the benefits of optimising for image search.