Internet has undoubtedly become an essential part of most people’s lives, and a big part of accessing the internet often begins with or eventually comes back to using a search engine. Google, the world’s biggest search engine, releases yearly data about the global search trends and trends according to different countries. The Google’s Year in Search 2020 data is out, and the search trends of India reveal interesting things about the country and its experience with the year 2020.
For a country that deeply loves the game of cricket, it doesn’t come as a surprise that “Indian Premier League” is the overall most searched term on Google this year. The 2020 Indian Premier League or IPL 13 started in September this year. Due to COVID-19 pandemic, the matches were held in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
What’s surprising about this trend though, is that it overshadowed “Coronavirus” which came second in the overall searches of this year. Coronavirus, of course, doesn’t need an introduction, and the reason for its popularity is well-understood and can be summarized with just one word: pandemic. Even though it couldn’t make it to the top in India, the term managed to take the first spot in the global search trends.
The “US election results” is the third most searched term in India this year. The U.S election has been arguably one of the biggest events in 2020, as people all around the world impatiently waited to know whether Donald Trump would be re-elected or would Joe Biden replace him.
President-elect Biden came out victorious, and this is reflected in the search trends too, as he is the most searched personalities in India. These trends also show just how concerned the Indian population was about one of the country’s most prominent ally nations. The other people who made it to the top 5 of the ‘personalities’ search trends include, Arnab Goswami, Kanika Kapoor, Kim Jong-un and Amitabh Bachchan.
The “PM Kisan Yojana” or the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi, the extended monetary support to farmers, is the fourth most overall searched term, followed by Bihar Election results at fifth.
There are several other search trends which are grouped according to categories. The ‘Near me’ category shows searches which ended with “near me.” The people of India have searched for food shelters, COVID tests, cracker shops, liquor shops and night shelters. Most of these search trends shows the struggles during the pandemic. The searches for cracker (firework) shops and liquor shops, on the other hand, show the celebratory spirit (no pun intended) of the country.
Surprisingly, IPL also made it to the global top 5 over all searches. The other terms in the global top 5 list are Kobe Bryant, election results, and Zoom. All of this data is an interesting way to sum-up an entire year which was full of surprises. The data also serves as a window into the mindset of the general population, as well as a way to reflect on all that has happened this year.
“As we prepare to turn the page on the year gone by, it offers a great vantage point, for individuals, communities, countries, to look back and reflect — to make sense of what we felt and did, the decisions we took, the changes we ushered in. And to us at Google, there is no better reflection of this than the questions that were asked the most in the year,” wrote Google in a blog post.
