Now that we're getting to the end of 2021, Google has released its annual Year in Search report, a lengthy article that shows the most popular terms, phrases, and questions that were put through the search engine over the course of the year. The article sort of serves as a run down of the past 12 months, displaying the top searches as they came about over each month.
While we're still dealing with the global pandemic, the searches related to this were not as popular as you might expect. "Vaccination volunteer", "when is nurses week", and "how to maintain mental health" were all top picks that relate to, or could relate to the pandemic, but conservation and caring for the planet tended to peak this year as well, with "sustainability", "impact of climate" and "volcano" all being top picks.
These weren't the only serious, global matters that drew a lot of attention. "Suez Canal", "pride events near me", and "how to help Haiti"/"how to help Afghanistan" all were very popular searches globally.
But, serious matters weren't all that drew attention. The split of Daft Punk led to the electronic band being the top searched break up, "mittens" sky-rocketed thanks to the iconic picture of Bernie Sanders at Joe Biden's presidential inauguration, and "sea shanties" drew more attention than it ever had in Google Trends' history.
The full Year in Search also covers a variety of other top searches, but if you are interested in delving into that further, you can take a look at it yourself over here.