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While the global Covid-19 pandemic and the history-making US elections kept the world hooked, it was the Indian Premier League that made it to Google’s top trending searches list in India in 2020.
“The top 10 overall list of trending search terms this year clearly reflected the global concern around the pandemic, with a natural surge in queries about coronavirus. But, interestingly, our fascination with cricket remained unchallenged as the IPL came out tops, trumping even the US elections,” Google said in a blog post. IPL also made it to the top five in the global search trends.
IPL, coronavirus, and the US presidential elections also dominated the general news queries. Other global and local news on the most trending list included the nationwide lockdown, the Beirut explosion, bushfires in Australia, and locust attacks.
The Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi (PM Kisan Scheme) and Bihar elections rounded the top five most trending search terms overall in India.
“While netizens took a significant interest in the Bihar and Delhi elections, there was also a clear interest in understanding the shifting world-scape with searches on US President-elect Joe Biden emerging one of the top trending personalities, along with TV journalist Arnab Goswami,” Google said.
Along with Biden and Goswami, Kanika Kapoor, Kim Jong-un and Amitabh Bachchan made it to the list of five most-searched personalities on the platform.
“On the entertainment front, late actor Sushant Singh Rajput's final cinematic outing Dil Bechara was the only movie this year to make it to the top 10 trending list,” Google said.
Other trending searches
‘Near Me’ and ‘How to’ searches also witnessed a massive spike this year reflecting “the global shift to working from home and dealing with the pandemic.”
‘How to make paneer?’ and ‘How to increase immunity?’ topped the list, followed queries for the widely viral, ‘How to make dalgona coffee’. In the 'Near me' queries category, the top query in the category was ‘Food shelters near me’ followed by ‘CovidOVID test near me’. As netizens adjusted to working form home, ‘Broadband connection near me’ and ‘Laptop shop near me’ also trended this year.
Globally, Coronavirus, Election results, Kobe Bryant, Zoom and IPL were the most trending searches in 2020.
Giraj Sharma, founder-director of Behind the Moon, a brand consultancy, said: “There are three reasons for the IPL emerging as the top trending query on Google Search. India is a cricket loving nation deprived of any live sporting action for 6 months - this was bound to happen with IPL. Second, with most matches being extremely close affairs (super overs, last few balls results) the interest only got heightened and cricket per se is one of the statistics-driven sports so it fuels searches big time,” said Giraj Sharma, founder-director of Behind the Moon, a brand consultancy:
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