Some of the biggest questions on the minds of Australians this year covered the major Optus outage, sports, films, and requests for unique recipes. Fortunately, we weren’t alone.
It’s practically the end of the year, and you know what that means: it’s time for Google to show us all what we searched.
Not individually — your private data is still just that: private — but rather collectively, as the nation’s largest searches have been brought together to show what we as a country headed to the world’s biggest search engine to find out.
It’s happening the world over, as Google talks up the world’s biggest searches in Australia and the US, among other places, and perhaps unsurprisingly, many of them actually line up.
Oh sure, some of Australia’s searches are very specific to Australia, covering major topics like the Optus outage and the Matildas players, but some are also shared with other parts of the world.
Take how Australians searched entertainment, with Oppenheimer topping our searches in first place, while Barbie scored second position. Interestingly, America saw the exact opposite ranking, with Barbie in the top spot and Oppenheimer in position two.
Across the world, everyone was searching the war in Israel and Gaza, which pulled a top position for many places, as well as (perhaps strangely) a recipe for a McDonald’s Grimace Shake.
Ultimately, all of this is a reminder of just how much we all use Google and how we turn to the search engine regularly for our answers. It is everywhere: in our phones, smart speakers, computers, and more. Googling something is very much a part of the vernacular, and so depending on Google for answers is just a part of every day life.
