Google has released its annual list of most popular searches and in the U.S., “Hurricane Irma,” “Matt Lauer,” “Tom Petty,” the “Super Bowl” and the “Las Vegas shooting” created maximum buzz. Going by the search results, it seems like more people were inclined to the darker stories than the positive developments throughout the year.
Hurricane Irma – most popular searched term
Google’s most popular searches are based on trillions of queries, from which Google filters out spam, and then identifies searches with the highest traffic compared to the last year and so on. Thereafter, the qualified searches are divided into memes, news and recipes.
In the U.S., “Hurricane Irma” took the first spot, whereas “Hurricane Harvey” stood 8th in the top ten list. “Solar Eclipse,” which was witnessed in August, was number seven. At number five was the October “Las Vegas shooting,” which claimed 59 lives. Coming to celebrity deaths, musician “Tom Pretty” was the top search and was number three overall. The former Patriots tight end “Aaron Hernandez,” who took his own life in a prison cell in April, was at the ninth spot.
Further, “Super Bowl” and the “Mayweather/McGregor fight” took fourth and fifth spot respectively. “Fidget spinner” took the 10th spot, whereas NBC anchor “Matt Lauer” took number second spot overall, and was the most searched person in general.
Coming to the “Consumer Tech” space, Apple dominated the list with the “iPhone 8,” “iPhone X,” “iPhone 8 Plus” and “Apple Watch 3” grabbing first, second, sixth and ninth spot respectively. Other names that made the top search in the tech space were “Nintendo Switch,” “Samsung Galaxy S8,” “Razer Phone,” “Super NES Classic,” “Google Pixel 2” and “Galaxy Note 8.”
The List of most searched people in the U.S was populated mostly with actors and entertainment personalities, who got meddled in sexual misconduct, such as “Matt Lauer,” “Harvey Weinstein,” “Kevin Spacey” and “Bill O’ Reilly.”
Popular searches in the UK
In the UK, fiancée to Prince Harry, “Meghan Markle,” was the top most searched term. The “Manchester bombing” and “Grenfell Tower” also featured in the top ten. In top ten list of “What is…?” queries, people mostly asked about the UK election, with hung parliament and the Democratic Unionist Party dominating the search.
Among the top buzzwords, “Bitcoin” stood on the top. Bitcoin-related phrases like “What is Bitcoin?” “How to buy Bitcoin” and “How to mine bitcoins” also appeared on the trending lists as Bitcoin value touched new highs in 2017.
“People aren’t only using Google Search to find information about the topics that matter to them. They’re increasingly searching for ways to take action and find out how to do things – including how to donate or volunteer in moments of crisis,” said Hannah Glenny, a Google Search trends expert, according to BBC.
In the global search, “Hurricane Irma” bagged the first spot, followed by the “iPhone 8” and “iPhone X.” “Matt Lauer” and “Meghan Markle” were at number four and five respectively, while “Indian National Cricket Team” came in at tenth.
