Posted by From chocolate bars to the Princess of Wales, Google announced the latest insights from their list of top trending searches during 2024 – both globally and inside the US.
The annual listing brought to us by TechCrunch ranks searches that pinpoint popular trends, not the “most searched word” or words. According to Google, terms like “weather” would otherwise end up topping the list, but wouldn’t indicate social trends or subjects of special relevance to us during that time period.
Instead, the “Year in Search takes note of what surged in popularity in 2024, specifically which queries had a high spike in traffic over a sustained period in 2024 as compared to 2023,” says Google. It also excludes searches on other Google platforms like YouTube, or arising from its AI chatbot, Gemini.
On the global scene, sporting events captured six of the top ten spots, with soccer tournaments Copa América, and the UEFA European Championship in first and second, the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup cricket match in third, and another cricket matchup, India vs. England, in fourth place.
Coming in at 5th most searched globally was Liam Payne, the famous One Direction singer who passed away this year. Donald Trump was the sixth most popular search worldwide, nodding to the election year, and in 7th was the widely followed cricket match India vs. Bangladesh. Other searches about the iPhone16, the Paris Olympics, and the Princess of Wales rounded out the global top ten.
The world listing lends perspective on just how pervasive the use of Google is internationally. On the most searched people front worldwide, Donald Trump was number one, with Kamala Harris coming in third most searched person. He also outranked Harris in US-only trends, and Trump’s Pennsylvania assassination attempt made the top ten list of global news events.
While Google doesn’t rank social platform trends, some of these make their way to the top anyway. This is the story of the Dubai chocolate bars that burst on the scene after a Dubai food influencer’s TikTok video went viral. The chocolate bars ended up landing on multiple lists, including top global and top US food recipes and viral foods.
The surprise chocolate bar sensation underscores TikTok’s reach, as the viral video spilled into different media outlets, eventually landing in top Google searches.
To view many more Google top lists of 2024 results by categories, including the US top news and political events, most popular cultural topics, and “internet theories” of the year, continue reading here.