What have we been Googling in 2018?

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We sure do like to carry out a Google search these days. The search engine giant processes more than 40,000 search queries every second on average. That’s over 3.5 billion searches each day and more than 1.2 trillion searches each year across the globe!

What has been the focus of many Google searches conducted throughout 2018 though? We’ve delved into Google Trends’ Year in Search 2018 hub for some interesting insights…

Brits sure do like their sport

Part of Google Trends’ Year in Search 2018 tool is dedicated to sporting events, with the FIFA World Cup the top search in this category. A few other sporting occasions which only come around every few years also made the top ten: the Ryder Cup occupied 4th spot, the Winter Olympics was in 5th place, and the Commonwealth Games was in 6th spot.

However, we still love keeping up-to-date with annual events in the sports calendar too. This is showcased by the fact that Grand National, Wimbledon, the Super Bowl, Cheltenham, and the Six Nations all featured in this particular list. In fact, only one sporting event in the entire top ten was a one-off occasion —the Joshua vs Parker boxing showdown.

On the topic of boxing, the query ‘How to watch Fury vs. Wilder?’ was the top searched ‘How to…?’ query. Hopefully, any of you who carried out this search found out that you either needed to book the event on BT Sport Box Office or headed to somewhere that was hosting the fight!

BT Sport in general was also the answer to another popular sport-related ‘How to…?’, as the third most searched for query of the year in this category was ‘How to watch the Champions League final?’.

Sport actually dominates so much of what has been trending in 2018 in the UK according to Google. The FIFA World Cup wasn’t only the most searched for sporting event; it was the top search across the nation in general! Sport also featured among the top ten most searched for people, including Man Utd forward Alexis Sanchez and the club’s former legendary manager Sir Alex Ferguson. Arsenal striker Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang made that particular top ten list too.

On top of all of this, ‘What is the UEFA Nations League?’ was the 8th most searched ‘What is…?’ query of the year. We’d need another blog post entirely to explain the answer to that question though! So instead, let’s just settle on the reassuring note that England have reached the finals of the tournament next summer!

We still love the royal family too

Leading into 2018, we had certainly enjoyed a few years of following the goings on of the British royal family. In 2011, we watched the wedding of Kate Middleton and Prince William. Then, in 2017, we celebrated the Sapphire Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II — the longest-reigning monarch in British history.

However, we were still looking for our royal family fix throughout the past year, and we weren’t disappointed!

Meghan Markle, who has adjusted to a life of royalty after marrying Prince Harry on May 19th, was both the most searched for person of 2018 and the second most popular search in general.

The Royal Wedding was the third most popular general search, and the top searched for news event too. Although, we must point out that this occasion can refer to both the marriage of Prince Harry to Meghan Markle and the wedding of Princess Eugenie and Jack Brooksbank a couple of months ago on October 12th.

Another search related to the British royal family that can be tied to multiple events is the fact Royal Baby was the 2nd most searched for news event. Of course, 2018 has seen Prince William and Kate Middleton welcome their third child — Prince Louis Arthur Charles —  into the world. Zara and Mike Tindall also extended their family with the birth of their second daughter, Lena Elizabeth, and Prince Harry and Meghan Markle revealed they are expecting their first child next spring.

The last announcement should certainly see the royal family continue to get plenty more searches in 2019!

But we may be tiring of social media

The social media industry is huge, with We Are Social’s Global Digital Report 2018 revealing that not only are there 4.021 billion internet users worldwide, but that the number of social media users across the globe has reached 3.196 billion.

Could it be possible that we no longer want to be part of social media though, possibly due to concerns raised about matters of privacy? After all, ‘How to delete Instagram?’ and ‘How to delete Facebook?’ were the 5th and 6th most searched for ‘How to…?’ queries of 2018, respectively.

Ranking even higher than both queries was ‘How to get the old Snapchat back?’, which was the 4th most searched for ‘How to…?’ query and could suggest that, while we may not want to take a complete social media detox, we’re prepared to take a stand if our profiles undergo huge changes. We wonder if ‘don’t mess with the Stories page’ is now the top rule at team Snapchat?

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