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World Cup fixtures, Zuma and load shedding top Google’s search for 2018

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Top Google searches in South Africa. Picture: Muhamamd Hussain
Top Google searches in South Africa. Picture: Muhamamd Hussain

South Africans love to search for “Zuma”, this is according to Google’s annual top trending search terms for the year.

The search engine giant released its top ten trending searches over the last 12 months on Wednesday, which showed that South Africans have a “keen interest in local celebrities, news and events, with six of the top 10 trending search terms being local.”

Zuma, Winnie Mandela, Global Citizen, Meghan Markle and world cup fixtures were typed into Google’s search engine more often than any other terms in 2018.

“The core of what South Africans searched for have been around current events,” Mich Atagana, Google SA’s head of communications, said at its offices in Johannesburg.

Top trending South African searches

1. World Cup fixtures

2. Load shedding

3. Global Citizen

4. Zuma

5. Winnie Mandela

6. HHP

7. Listeriosis

8. Black Panther

9. Meghan Markle

10. Mac Miller

Atagana said that there were notable exceptions like the Guptas, state capture and the Zondo commision but that the data shows “people are not searching for them.”

“The Guptas are not on the list becuase South Africans are not that interested as we think they are. They already know that information and are more intrested in information they don’t know.”

The data is collected from South Africans who have been searching and asking Google this year.

“These are searches that were trending and had a high burst, like Global Citizen for example. Global Citizen was announced in July and the event happened in December, that was only a six month period but the interest in it was high enough to beat out anything that was searched for since January,” Atagana explained.

It was also interesting for Google to note how polite South Africans are when searching, with the word “please” attached to many search queries.

The search engine processes more than 40 000 search queries every second, that’s equivalent to about 1.2 trillion searches worldwide per year.

You can also see what was trending globally here: Google year in search


Here are the top trending Google searches in 2018:

Trending personalities:

1. Zuma

2. Cyril Ramaphosa

3. Sbahle Mpisane

4. Kevin Anderson

5. Malusi Gigaba

6. Ashwin Willemse

7. Patrice Motsepe

8. Cheryl Zondi

9. Shamila Batohi

10. Mlindo the Vocalist

Top Questions:

1. How did Avicii die?

2. How old is Pharrell Williams?

3. What is listeriosis?

4. What is black data?

5. How old is Prince Harry?

6. How much are Global Citizen tickets?

7. How to get pregnant?

8. What time is the royal wedding?

9. What happened to HHP?

10. How old is Meghan Markle?

Top ‘near me’ searches:

1. Jobs near me

2. Nandos near me

3. Dischem near me

4. McDonalds near me

5. Guest house near me

6. Postnet near me

7. Steers near me

8. Spar near me

9. Debonairs near me

10. Spur near me

Top women:

1. Winnie Mandela

2. Meghan Markle

3. Sbahle Mpisane

4. Aretha Franklin

5. Khloe Kardashian

6. Sophie Ndaba

7. Cheryl Zondi

8. Demi Lovato

9. Lerato Sengadi

10. Siam Lee


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