What the world googled in 2024, from online trends to global elections
Do you remember what you looked up this year? Google just shared the most searched topics, phrases and questions of 2024.
Gold medallist Imane Khelif was one of the most searched people of the year and the top googled sportsperson. Photo: AFPWhat did you Google in 2024? We’re about to find out. The tech company has released its annual “Year in Search”, rounding up the top trending queries entered into its namesake search engine in 2024.
Terms that saw the highest spike in traffic include major news events like global elections, the most popular songs, athletes and unforgettable pop-culture moments.
Worldwide, people loved looking up sports. Football (or “soccer” in North America) and cricket dominated Google’s overall trending searches in 2024. Copa América topped globally, followed by the UEFA European Championship and ICC Men’s T20 World Cup.
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The United States election led news-specific searches worldwide. Queries about excessive heat and this year’s Olympic Games followed.
US president-elect Donald Trump topped searches in Google’s people category this year, followed by Catherine, Princess of Wales, US Vice-President Kamala Harris and Algerian boxer Imane Khelif, who also led athlete-specific searches.
The late Liam Payne, Toby Keith and OJ Simpson led search trends among notable individuals who died in 2024.
In the world of entertainment, Disney and Pixar’s Inside Out 2 was the top trending movie of the year, while Netflix’s Baby Reindeer led TV show searches. Kendrick Lamar’s “Not Like Us” dominated song searches.
That’s just the tip of the iceberg.
Queries for the Olympic Village’s chocolate muffin made famous by Norwegian swimmer Henrik Christiansen over the summer games led Google’s global recipe trends this year.
The New York Times “Connections” puzzle topped game searches. And country-specific data shows that many people in the US asked Google about online trends like the word “demure” and “mob wife aesthetic”.
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You can find more country-specific lists and trends from years past through Google’s “Year in Search” data, published online. The California company collected 2024 search results from January 1 through November 23.
Google isn’t the only one to publish an annual recap or top trends as 2024 draws to a close. Spotify Wrapped, for example, as well as Collins Dictionary and Merriam-Webster’s Words of the Year, have offered additional reflections for 2024.