Top Search Topics on Google in 2017
American online tech giant, Google, has just revealed its top trending topics in the just-ended year 2017. Among the most trending searches were everything from news and society topics to the most searched personalities, celebrity break-ups and even natural disasters. In fact, Hurricane Irma appeared as the #1 search term not only in the US but also across the world!
The search results, released as part of Google's “Year in Search” for 2017, offered up over 40 categories of "Top 10" lists for the most-searched topics by American as well as global internet surfers. Google says that it ranked the various search terms highlighted in the report based on what trending topics experienced the highest online traffic spike over a sustained period of time in 2017 relative to the year 2016.
According to the report, many of the most trending questions across the world were centered around the disasters and tragedies -- both natural and human-caused -- that touched all corners of the globe. For instance, apart from Hurricane Irma, “Hurricane Harvey” and “Las Vegas Shooting” were the other frequently-searched terms in this category. Google says that this shows how the most unfortunate events of our lives bring us together in a moment of collective humanity. It is during these moments that we all troop to online sources to ask "how to help" more than we have ever done before.
Aside from the natural calamities, another highly searched term that is associated with nature was “Solar Eclipse.”
For top searches by online users based out of the US, Google categorized them into a series of lists that covered everything from the top trending searches overall to the top-searched individual topics on various prominent and even not-so-prominent personalities including actors, athletes, movie stars, models, etc, as well as searches on consumer tech, various how-to themes and even celebrity break-ups of the past year.
Disgraced former news anchor at NBC's Today Show, Matt Lauer, was the top-searched personality in 2017, with celebrated actress Meghan Markle coming in at Number 2. While Lauer made headlines after being fired from NBC in November over a number of alleged sexual misconduct instances involving junior colleagues at his workplace, Markle came top among the most-searched actors and actresses, most probably as a result of her headline-making engagement to Britain’s Prince Harry, which was made public in late November.
In fact, among the most searched individual terms overall by American online users, only Hurricane Irma beat Matt Lauer, highlighting the kind of publicity the allegations of sexual misbehavior leveled against him by multiple women generated!
In the how-to search category, “How to make slime” was the top trending search topic, while Floyd Mayweather ranked #1 in the athletes' category. In the consumer tech segment, Apple's iPhone 8 came ahead of its sister gadget, the iPhone X.
As for people who wanted to know more about celebrity break-ups of the past year than most other topics, the split between former Bachelor contestants, 29-year-old Ben Higgins and 27-year-old Lauren Bushnell was the break-up story they searched most.
Below are lists of Google’s year-in-search lists from the US:
Top 10 Searches Overall
- Hurricane Irma
- Matt Lauer
- Tom Petty
- Super Bowl
- Las Vegas Shooting
- Mayweather vs. McGregor Fight
- Solar Eclipse
- Hurricane Harvey
- Aaron Hernandez
- Fidget Spinner
Top 10 People Searches
- Matt Lauer
- Meghan Markle
- Harvey Weinstein
- Michael Flynn
- Kevin Spacey
- Bill O’Reilly
- Melania Trump
- Kathy Griffin
- Milo Yiannopoulos
- Gal Gadot
Top 10 News Searches
- Hurricane Irma
- Las Vegas Shooting
- Solar Eclipse
- Hurricane Harvey
- Bitcoin Price
- North Korea
- Hurricane Jose
- Hurricane Maria
- April the Giraffe
- DACA
Top 10 Consumer Tech Searches
- iPhone 8
- iPhone X
- Nintendo Switch
- Samsung Galaxy S8
- Razer Phone
- iPhone 8 Plus
- Super NES Classic
- Google Pixel 2
- Apple Watch 3
- Samsung Galaxy Note 8
Top 10 How-To Searches
- How to make slime
- How to make solar eclipse glasses
- How to watch the solar eclipse
- How to watch Mayweather vs McGregor
- How to buy Bitcoin
- How to freeze your credit
- How to solve a Rubix Cube
- How to make a fidget spinner
- How to cook a turkey in the oven
- How to screen record
Top 10 Celebrity Breakups In 2017
- Ben Higgins and Lauren Bushnell breakup
- Malika Haqq and Ronnie Magro breakup
- Dutchess and Caesar breakup
- Aaron Rodgers and Olivia Munn breakup
- Kylie Jenner and Tyga breakup
- Lindsey Stirling and Ryan Weed breakup
- Chris Pratt and Anna Faris breakup
- Nick Viall and Vanessa Grimaldi breakup
- Amy Schumer and Ben Hanisch breakup
- Lady Gaga and Taylor Kinney breakup
Aside from US searches, Google also made a compilation of 15 varying categories in the global searches segment. A significant number of these searches were a reflection of the results obtained in the top searches by Americans, with “Hurricane Irma” coming top overall and “Matt Lauer” ranking first in the people category both in the US and across the globe. The overall list globally nearly mirrored the US one, save for the term “Manchester” which came in the place of “DACA” in the worldwide searches list.
Top 10 Searches (Global)
- Hurricane Irma
- iPhone 8
- iPhone X
- Matt Lauer
- Meghan Markle
- 13 Reasons Why
- Tom Petty
- Fidget Spinner
- Chester Bennington
- India National Cricket Team
Top 10 People Searches (Global)
- Matt Lauer
- Meghan Markle
- Nadia Toffa
- Harvey Weinstein
- Kevin Spacey
- Gal Gadot
- Melania Trump
- Floyd Mayweather
- Michael Flynn
- Philippe Coutinho
Top 10 News Searches (Global)
- Hurricane Irma
- Bitcoin
- Las Vegas Shooting
- North Korea
- Solar Eclipse
- Hurricane Harvey
- Manchester
- Hurricane Jose
- Hurricane Maria
- April the Giraffe
Source: Google Trends | Search Engine Land
