From Liam Payne to Crowdstrike, these are the most popular searches of 2024, according to Google.

Interest in Donald Trump has exceeded interest in Kamala Harris. People were eating in Dubai chocolate bars. And the Yankees really won. This and more information is from Google’s annual best of list trend searchesreleased today.

Google’s place in popular culture today is undisputed. This the world’s largest internet propertyand Google Search most visited site. Yes, promotion Generative AI chatbots and social programs one day it may eat away at Google’s dominance, but for now it reigns supreme, and these results serve as a barometer of what the world cares about right now.

We’ll go over some of the results below, but first let’s dwell a little more on what Google is measuring. First of all, these are no The most popular search terms for 2024. Google tells me that if it were to create a list, the most popular searches would be for words like “weather,” and they haven’t really changed over the years.

“The Year of Search” instead highlights what’s trending in 2024, particularly a high increase in traffic over a sustained period in 2024 compared to 2023. The goal is to select perennial favorites like “weather” to determine what people were interested in the past year.

Google told TechCrunch that the list was compiled based on text-based searches only google.com. This does not include searches on other Google properties, such as YouTube, or queries transmitted from the Gemini generative AI chatbot. One exception to all this is the trending “hum” search list, a tool that lets you hum a tune to find out what it actually is.

If current trends continue, you have to wonder what these lists will look like in the coming years. Recent studies (via eMarketer) found that young adults in the US have turned away from using Google for online searches, with Gen X being 25% less likely to use it. Instead, they prefer social media sites like TikTok to find trends, news and answers. to possible questions. This could prompt Google to include more data from YouTube over time, which is still strong with a younger demographic.

The rise of generative AI is also a factor. So far, OpenAI’s ChatGPT seems to be the only bot to make the top 10 list of the world’s most popular websites. SimilarWeb. Google has a decent and formidable card to play there: It’s already incorporating Generative AI results into its searches, in addition to offering them in standalone apps. This gives it an opportunity to offer it as an addition to its core search experience—a better alternative than cannibalizing its own product.

Popular global search trends

These are interesting mainly because they highlight how much Google is used outside of the US. The most searched term in 2024 was the soccer (soccer) tournament, the Copa America, followed by another soccer tournament, the UEFA European Championship. This was followed by two cricket sporting events, the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup and a special ‘test match’ between India and England.

Overall, six of the top ten search trend terms were for sporting events (the Olympics only made up number 9). The highest position on the list was One Direction singer Liam Payne, who died earlier this year, while Donald Trump came in fifth. The list is completed by the iPhone 16 and Catherine of Wales.

Searches (Global)

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 Paris 2024
10. Catherine, Princess of Wales

Election concepts

Are Google searches an interesting reflection of what’s happening in the real world, or are they shaping what the real world turns out to be? Donald Trump, who won the US presidential elections, surpassed his rival Kamala Harris in Google searches. It appears in the top 10 global search trends (not Harris); it was the No. 1 name on the global list of people’s search trends (Kamala was third); and his shooting even made the top 10 list of global news events. Trump similarly outperformed Harris in US-only trends.

Major news trends

In 2023, Google said Israel/Gaza was number one in news trends, and in 2024, it said it did not continue to rise. Instead, this year, the US election tops the list of news events, along with the Olympics, Rafah and Iran. and oddly enough, the Menendez brothers. Natural weather disasters continued to permeate the list, and the Crowdstrike outage was a big enough mess that it made the top 10.

Dubai chocolate bars

Google may deliberately ignore search trends on social platforms in its rankings, but it cannot actually avoid them. Dubai Chocolate Bars — a chocolate bar with a rich and crunchy pistachio-dough filling — made it onto several lists this year: Best Global and US Food Recipes and Viral Foods. But why?

It’s down to TikTok: The bars became a sensation after a food influencer from Dubai, where they were first made, posted about them and his TikTok video went viral. This eventually led to a million other media outlets writing about it, and voila: you have a Google search trend.

Nancy Meyers and her many faces

Fashion inspiration, they say, can come from anywhere. In 2024, it came from middle-aged women in movies. Remake filmmaker Nancy Meyers has been active since the early 1980s, but her true heyday came in the 1990s and early 2000s. Mother Trap, Father of the Brideand What women want.

Many of his films feature iconic female characters who are well-off without being filthy rich, their positions embodied in a comfortable fashion sense. Some of these began to speak openly to women in the 2020s. See the rise of Coastal Grandmother and her 2024 incarnation, Coastal Grandson. Once again thanks to tips on social platforms like TikTok and Instagram, Meyers and Neve made it to Google’s trending list this year.

Burnt toast and orange peel: No, these are not food trends

People are somewhat obsessed with food, so it’s no surprise that the top two “internet theories” trending in the US in 2024 refer to food. They are, in fact, otherwise completely unrelated.

Burnt toast theory is a modern, more optimistic version of what is variously described as fatalism or determinism in philosophy: All the little things in life, including those that seem like failures, are all part of a bigger picture and happen. for a reason.

The orange peel theory is about how you can tell if someone is being considerate of you: If you ask a person to peel an orange for you, and they do, you have a keeper. Or so the theory goes. Again, both of these got their viral start on TikTok.