Search giant Google has recently released its Year In Search lists that detail what users of the company’s iconic search engine have been looking for over the past 12 months.
This has become something of an annual occurrence for the search company and one that gives us all insight into the major happenings of the year, and perhaps one into the habits of the British population.
Google gives us various lists, each detailing the search habits of individual countries, as well as a global list. So, what has the UK been Googling this year?
The top trending UK searches of 2017 are:
1. Meghan Markle
2. iPhone 8
3. Hurricane Irma
4. Fidget spinner
5. Manchester bombing
6. Grenfell Tower
7. 13 Reasons Why
8. Tara Palmer-Tomkinson
9. Shannon Matthews
10. iPhone X
It is perhaps unsurprising that the UK’s top search of the year is American actress Meghan Markle, who recently got engaged to Prince Harry. A couple of iPhone models appear in the top 10 along with fidget spinners, showing some of the more popular products in the UK this year. Three tragedies also make up the top 10, in the form of Hurricane Irma, the Manchester bombing and Grenfell Tower.
How does this compare to the top global searches?
The top trending global searches of 2017 are:
1. Hurricane Irma
2. iPhone 8
3. iPhone X
4. Matt Lauer
5. Meghan Markle
6. 13 Reasons Why
7. Tom Petty
8. Fidget Spinner
9. Chester Bennington
10. India National Cricket Team
The top four UK search terms also appear in the global variation of the list. Hurricane Irma was the world’s most searched topic of the year, followed by the two iPhone models.
It has been noted that there was a significant increase in searches beginning with ‘how to’ this year, with the figure rising 150% over the last 10 years, and hitting an all-time high this year. The top three how to searches in the UK were ‘How to make slime’, ‘How to buy Bitcoin’ and ‘How to stay young?=’.
What’s been in the news?
According to Google, these are the top UK news event searches of the year:
1. Hurricane Irma
2. Manchester bombing
3. Grenfell Tower
4. North Korea
5. London Bridge attack
6. General election
7. Harvey Weinstein
8. Catalan independence
9. Las Vegas shooting
10. Kevin Spacey
This reflects that Brits are constantly searching for news, with the top three news events of the year also appearing in the top six of the top UK searches of the year.
Google details many different lists in its review, all of which can be seen here. As the year comes to an end, we can now look forward to what will rock the world in 2018.
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