There are almost 12 billion Google searches globally every month. You can get a good idea of what most of the world is thinking about by looking at what they’re searching for. Using a great free tool called Google Trends, you can track search trends across the world or in specific countries. The results are always interesting.
Here are some South African search trends from the past 12 months.
Top South African searches on Google
1. Facebook
2. Facebook Facebook (as if there could be two)
3. Google
4. YouTube
5. Gmail
6. News
7. Facebook login
8. Gumtree
9. Love
10. FNB
Rising search trends over the past 12 months in South Africa include the World Cup, Tubidy (a mobile video search engine), BBM, Waptrick and Zamob (mobile content download sites), Tumblr (a microblogging platform), the singer Beyonce, OLX (an online classifieds website), Mandela and Whatsapp download.
In the social media space, Facebook dominates the searches, followed by Mxit, Twitter, tumblr and LinkedIn. Searches rising in popularity include WeChat, Badoo, Instagram and MegaShare (a site which allows you to watch movies online for free).
When it comes to software and gadgets, the most popular rising searches include Samsung Galaxy S5, Windows 8.1 and PS4, while the most searched-for terms were Mxit, Google, Samsung, DStv and Wapatrick.
The dominant names in all Internet- and telecomes-related searches are: Google, Blackberry, Yahoo, Vodacom, Samsung, Gmail and Mxit.
