From Liam Payne to Beach Boys, here are the biggest searches happening in 2024, according to Google.

Donald Trump’s interest was higher than Kamala Harris’ interest. People ate the contents of chocolate bars in Dubai. And the Yankees did win. This and more information is all from Google’s annual list current searchwhich is releasing today.

Google Sites is a popular culture today and it is undeniable. That’s it the largest online property in the worldand Google Search the visited a lot place. Yes, the amount of AI-powered chatbots and social media maybe, one day, they will eat into Google’s control. But for now, it is very much in control, and what follows is a kind of barometer of what the world wants to know at that time.

We’ll go through some of the results below, but first a little more about what Google is measuring. First, this is it no the most popular search terms of 2024. Google tells me that if it built this list, the most popular things, throughout the year, would be words like “weather”, and they would not change much, year after year.

“Year in Search” instead recognizes what became popular in 2024, specifically queries that “had a higher traffic volume in 2024 compared to 2023.” The goal is to eliminate perennial fads like “weather” to find out what people wanted to know about the past year, to explain zeitgeist.

That is to say: if people – at least those who go online – have ideas and interest, these tables tell us what it was this year.

Google told TechCrunch that the list is only included in voice searches google.com. It does not include searches on other Google services such as YouTube. And that doesn’t include questions that might have gone through the Gemini generative AI chatbot. The exception to all that is the “hum” search list – a tool that Google lets you hum your latest worm to find out what it is.

You have to wonder what these lists will look like in the years to come if what is happening is happening. A recent study (via eMarketer) found that in the US, young adults have stopped using Google for internet searches, while Gen Z 25% will not use it compared to Gen X. Instead, they prefer social media sites like TikTok to find trends, news and answers. to questions they may have. This could encourage Google to include more content over time from YouTube – which remains strong with young demos.

It is the rise of Generative AI. Currently, ChatGPT from OpenAI seems to be the only one that made it to the top 10 list of websites in the world (according to SimilarWeb) – yes, the same listings that rank Google Search so high. Google has a good and interesting card to play there: it already integrates the results of Generative AI in its search, as well as offering them in standalone applications, and this gives the company the opportunity to offer it as an aid to its basic search. events. Complement > cannibalize.

More searches around the world

This is interesting, especially because it confirms the amount of Google that is used outside the US The top search terms in 2024 compared to 2023 were the soccer tournament (soccer), Copa América; followed by another football tournament, the UEFA European Championship; followed by two cricket events, the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup and one “test” between India and England. Overall, six of the top 10 search terms were sports. (The Olympics only made it to number 9.) The first time on the list was Liam Payne, the One Direction singer who died earlier this year, who surpassed Donald Trump to number 5. The iPhone 16 and Catherine, Princess of Wales, complete the list.

Searches (Worldwide)

1. America’s Cup

2. UEFA European Championship

3. ICC Men’s T20 World Cup

4. India vs England

5. Liam Payne

6. Donald Trump

7. India vs Bangladesh

8. iPhone 16

9. Olympic Games in Paris 2024

10. Catherine, Queen of Wales

Opinions of the election

Is Google search an interesting representation of what is happening in the real world, or are they creating what the real world ends up doing? Donald Trump, who won the US presidential election, also surpassed his rival Kamala Harris in Google searches. He is featured in the top 10 searches worldwide (Harris does not). He was the first name on the world’s most wanted list. (Kamala was number three.) And his shooting made it into the top 10 of the world’s news. Trump outranked Harris by the same margin in the US polls alone.

Chocolate bars in Dubai

Google may intentionally ignore social media trends in its rankings, but it cannot avoid them. Chocolate bars in Dubai – a recipe that is chocolate filled with pistachio / filled cookies – made several lists this year: the best recipes of international and US food and viral food. But why?

It comes down to TikTok: bars became popular after a food promoter from Dubai, where the bar was first created, wrote about it and his TikTok video went viral. This led to a million other radio stations writing about it and voila! You have Google search in the making.

Nancy Meyers and her many guises

Fashion inspiration, they say, can come from anywhere. And in 2024 it came from middle-aged women in movies. Nancy Meyers is an actress who has been active since the early 1980s, but her real heyday was in the 1990s and early 2000s, where she created funny, funny, sympathetic, family-friendly comedies. be gold office with movies. as a remake of The Parent Trap, Father of the Brideand What Women Want. Many of his films feature prominent women who are rich without being filthy rich, whose status lies in the comfortable clothes they wear. Some of them have started talking to women in the 2020s. Check out the rise of Beach Grandma and the birth of 2024, Beach Granddaughter – again, thanks to inspiration on sites like TikTok and Instagram. Meyers and Granddaughter both made it onto this year’s trending list.