Majors

What Were Americans Searching for Most This Year?

MajorsDec 14, 2017

What Were Americans Searching for Most This Year?

According to Google, they were interested in Hurricane Irma, Matt Lauer, soon-to-be-royal Meghan Markle and Unicorn Frappuccinos.

2017_Google-logo.jpg

New York--Google’s list of most-searched terms in 2017 tended toward the more negative events and news that seemingly ruled the year.

On Wednesday, the technology company released its annual list of the top trending searches of the year in the United States and around the world. Google looked through all of its searches, filtered out spam and, of what remained, identified which terms had the highest increase in traffic compared with the previous year.

It released results in a number of categories, such as people, actors, news, how to, consumer tech and more.

Overall, the most-searched term among users in the U.S. was Hurricane Irma, followed by Matt Lauer, the popular “Today” show anchor who was fired in November amid sexual harassment claims; Tom Petty, who died in October; the Super Bowl and the Las Vegas shooting.

Lauer also topped the list of those trending in the “people” category, as did two other men who faced similar allegations: Harvey Weinstein and Kevin Spacey.


Harvey Weinstein was one of the most-searched for people in 2017 after The New York Times published a report detailing decades of sexual harassment and assault. The development briefly touched the industry when Helzberg Diamonds dropped the Marchesa jewelry line, a brand party run by Weinstein’s wife, Georgina Chapman.
Meanwhile, at Nos. 2 and 4 on the most-search-for people list were soon-to-be-royal Meghan Markle and Michael Flynn, President Donald Trump’s former national security adviser.

Interestingly, Google provided a list for most-searched for calorie inquiries this year.

In what also reads like a list of foods for which calorie ignorance would be bliss, Google users in America were most curious about Unicorn Frappucinos, the Instagram-worthy beverage from Starbucks that took the Internet by storm earlier this year; the Grand Mac, a limited-time release from McDonald’s that was bigger than the Big Mac; Taco Bell’s Naked Chicken Chalupa; Mac Jr. and Starbucks’ Cascara latte.

Not surprisingly, Apple dominated the consumer technology list, with top searches being the iPhone 8 and the iPhone X. They were followed by the Nintendo Switch, the Samsung Galaxy X8 and the Razer phone, a new one to hit the market.

Worldwide, Hurricane Irma also topped the list of searches followed by the iPhone 8, iPhone X, Matt Lauer and Meghan Markle.

News-wise, in addition to looking at updates about the hurricane, people across the globe also were searching about Bitcoin, the

Las Vegas shooting, North Korea and the solar eclipse.

In the “how to” category, people were trying to figure out how to make slime, how to make solar eclipse sunglasses and how to buy Bitcoin.

Google’s full list of top searches can be found online.
Brecken Branstratoris the senior editor, gemstones at National Jeweler, covering sourcing, pricing and other developments in the colored stone sector.

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