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20 Years of Top Trending Google Searches

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Infographic showing images of search trends on Google over the past 20 years

20 Years of Top Trending Google Searches

For decades, Google search has been a go-to source for many when looking up directions, keeping up with the news, or seeking information on new and unfamiliar topics.

Today, Google processes about 3.5 billion searches per day. Because of its dominant market share, Google holds a vast archive of keyword searches that, when analyzed, provide an interesting glimpse into the key themes that have captured the world’s attention over the years.

This graphic, using data from Google Trends, goes back 20 years and highlights some of the top keyword searches since 2001.

Our editorial team dug through hundreds of top trending search terms from global and U.S. data and hand-selected their top picks, which are featured in the graphic above.

Trending vs. Volume

Before diving in, it’s worth emphasizing how top trending searches differ from popular searches, which are measured by sheer volume.

Trending searches are terms that have recently spiked in popularity. They focus on growth rather than total volume, and in this dataset, trending terms gauge year-over-year growth.

A good example is Donald Trump, who popped up in the news cycle during the 2016 presidential campaign. After the election, interest in Trump remained high. But his name doesn’t pop up on the Google trends list after 2017, since by that point, search volume for Trump had plateaued.

What are the most popular Google search terms, by volume? To be honest, they’re slightly less interesting than the top trending searches — YouTube is number one, followed by Facebook, then WhatsApp web.

The Globalization of Search Trends

The people and topics featured in Google’s top trends lists evolves as time goes on, reflecting broader adoption of the internet (and Google Search) around the world over time. Early themes are tied to mainstream U.S. pop culture and tech trends.

As time goes on, social media and smartphone adoption increase the granularity and volume of searches, resulting in top trends that are more participatory, diverse, and global in nature.

One final variable to keep in mind is that Google itself began to share more detailed search highlights with each passing year.

Two Decades of Google Searches: Macro Insights

Now that we’ve explained what trending searches actually measure, let’s dig into some of the key themes that have emerged over the last two decades of Google searches.

① People Love Sports

Over the last 20 years, sports have remained a continuous trend.

Every four years, the World Cup shows up as a top trending keyword across the globe. The Olympics also makes a regular appearance, along with Olympic athletes like Michael Phelps and McKayla Maroney.

Although the U.S. dominates the list, particularly when it comes to athletes, there’s still a good variety of international sports that go viral, especially as time goes on. In the last two years, cricket, rugby, and soccer have all made the top five trending lists.

② The Emergence of Celebrity 2.0

Over time, you can also see a transition from the conventional celebrity to celebrity 2.0, also known as the social media celebrity. 

In the early 2000s, pop culture icons like Britney Spears, Eminem, and Jennifer Lopez flooded the trending searches, and traditional media forms like TV shows and Movies dominated the mass media categories.  

But by 2011, YouTube stars like Rebecca Black started to make their way on the trending search lists. And in 2014, Meme emerged as a top trending category.

This transition nods to a larger shift in media, as digital has gradually overtaken traditional media as the dominant form of entertainment.

③ Natural Disasters are Top of Mind

Natural Disasters are a key trend throughout this data set as well.

Hurricanes are a particularly trendy word, showing up almost half the time—in eight of the 20 years. In 2005, Hurricane Katrina ranked second in the most searched category across the globe.

It continued to gain global attention—by 2006, Hurricane Katrina was still in the top five trending news searches.

Dig Deeper into Trending Google Searches

Our team enjoyed sifting through 20 years of Google data, and we hope you enjoyed this blast from the past too. If you’d like to dive deeper, you can explore Google’s full dataset here.

Happy searching.

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Visualized: The Most Followed People on Instagram in 2024

From athletes and musicians to actors and celebrity personalities, here are the top 10 most followed people on Instagram.

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chart of the followed people on Instagram.

Visualized: The Most Followed People on Instagram in 2024

This was originally posted on our Voronoi app. Download the app for free on iOS or Android and discover incredible data-driven charts from a variety of trusted sources.

Scrolling through Instagram reels, stories, and posts has become a significant part of our lives—so much so that the most-followed people on Instagram are able to reach hundreds of millions.

So who are top celebrities influencing millions through this platform? Using data tracked by Social Blade as of March 13, 2024, this graphic shows the top 10 most-followed people on Instagram, not including corporate accounts.

2024’s Most Followed Instagram Personalities

Portuguese footballer Cristiano Ronaldo became the first person to cross 600 million followers in August 2023, and stands as the most-followed person on Instagram in 2024 with 624 million followers.

For comparison, that’s more than the population of the United States, Mexico, and Canada combined. Here are the entire top 10, rounded to the nearest million followers:

PersonInstagram Followers (March 2024)
Cristiano Ronaldo624M
Lionel Messi501M
Selena Gomez430M
Kylie Jenner400M
Dwayne Johnson398M
Ariana Grande380M
Kim Kardashian364M
Beyoncé320M
Khloé Kardashian311M
Kendall Jenner295M

In second is the only other major athlete to feature in the top 10, Lionel Messi with 501 million followers. Messi and Ronaldo are also the only people with more than 500 million followers on the entire platform.

Making up the rest of the top 10 is a mix of pop stars, actors, and celebrity personalities, including Selena Gomez at 430 million followers, and four members of the Kardashian–Jenner family, with Kylie Jenner having the most followers in the family with 400 million.

Interestingly, while these are the most followed people on Instagram, the number one most followed account belongs to Instagram itself. The account, which has over 7,000 posts, has over 670 million followers to date.

After that, the most followed corporate account is Nike, which has 306 million followers.

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