Google Search Trends 2015

At MintTwist we love we love search. So, according to Google, what were the some of the most searched for topics this year?

Popular Culture

In pop culture, two returning giants caused the greatest amount of search traffic. One in music – Adele – and one in film – Star Wars.

Adele returned to the music scene in November triggering worldwide search interest. Her new album ‘25’ made her the fastest trending musician of the year, topping Taylor Swift, Nicki Minaj, Rhianna and Ariana Grande to the top spot.

In December the official trailer for the newest Star Wars film became one of the most watched movie trailers of all time and had everyone asking, ‘what order should I watch Star Wars films in?’ Interestingly, Darth Vadar was the most searched character by far.

Current affairs

In current affairs people have been taking to Google this year to ask why, how and what? This year several tragedies occurred and most of us turned to Google to find information quickly.

Why?

In March following a plane crash over the French Alps, people wanted to know why the crash happened. Both the airline ‘German wings’ and the model of the plane ‘Airbus A320’ saw increased search traffic.

Questions revolved around the reasons for the crash, the speed of the crash and who the pilot of the plane was.

How?

When tragedy struck Nepal in April the world wanted to know how to help. The most searches relating to how to help, donate or volunteer were located in Nepal, the US and Germany.

Germans also wanted to know how to help with the refugee crisis, an issue which has been trending in search all year. One of the highest volume search terms in Germany regarding the matter was ‘how to volunteer to help migrants’.

What?

Economic issues in both Asia and Europe were prominent in search over the summer months.

A peak in searches for the Shanghai Stock Exchange occurred in June, as everyone wanted to find out the status of the Chinese stock market following its financial crash.

Greece became the first developed country to fail to make an IMF loan repayment in July triggering ‘Grexit’ searches worldwide.

Germany considered whether to assist Greece in the hopes of preventing them leaving the Euro. Both German and Greek citizens were concerned about what would happen should the Grexit take place.

In Germany people wanted to know what the cost implications of the Grexit would be. In Greece searches were asking ‘what will happen?’ and what the implications of a ‘no’ vote would be.

Who, what, how and why?

In November Paris was attacked by ISIS. The heart-breaking attacks led to a worldwide trend of solidarity with Paris – ‘pray for Paris.’

People wanted to know what happened, who did it, how many people were harmed and why Paris was targeted. To see how this news spread across the world via search click here.

Science

In science, a distant discovery in space made everyone wonder what else could be out there and the local issue of climate change got people searching.

In October NASA revealed that water had been discovered on the planet, making space travel to Mars a real possibility. Searches about visiting the planet surged – the top two queries asked how long it would take to get to Mars and how far away Mars is.

People also started questioning what life on Mars could be like. Our particular favourite is the trending question “what do aliens look like?”

The global climate change conference in Paris got people talking in November. Interestingly the top five countries searching this topic were the Philippines, Canada, Peru, Australia and Mexico. Global warming and sea level rise were the most Googled issues.

Politics

Google has been heavily used this year to help people understand politics and get to know more about individual politicians.

Who?

In May’s UK General Election we wanted to know who to vote for and who was likely to win. Although polls leading up to the election didn’t give away the front runner, Google data shows that David Cameron was the party leader who was most likely to be searched for across the UK.

Following the General Election Ed Miliband stepped down as Labour leader which led to leadership elections within the party. Again Google data pointed towards Miliband’s successor, as Corbyn was searched for significantly more than any of the other party candidate.

People took to search to find out the ages, marital status and even the height of the Labour party candidates!

Sport

Two world cups dominated Google search this year – the cricket world cup between February and March, and the women’s football world cup in July.

Global search interest in cricket peaked during the world cup. Due to the huge popularity of the sport in India, India was the most searched for team at start of the World Cup.

Also, as the final went live – Australia versus New Zealand – searches for ऑस्ट्रेलिया क्रिकेट टीम (Australian cricket team, in Hindi) increased dramatically.

113M+ searches were made relating to the women’s football world cup. The 2015 tournament saw double the search interest since it was last played in 2011. The USA team gained the most search interest, with this figure overtaking searches relating the USA’s male football team.

Viral

Last but not least we have a viral phenomenon. An optical illusion motivated a huge peak in search traffic in February.

‘The dress’ debate began on Twitter and provoked commentary worldwide. The question everyone was asking was, what colour is the dress?

This photograph went viral on February 26th leading to trending hashtags such as #thedress #blueandblack and #whiteandgold. Google searches for “what colour is the dress?” “why is it different colours?” and “where did the dress come from?” sky rocketed.

Just to clarify – it turned out the dress was blue and black, made by a company called Roman Originals.

Contact us

MintTwist specialise in search engine optimisation and pay per click. Say hello@minttwist.com if you would like to find out more about what we could do for your business.