2021 was a wild year in more ways than one, and just in time before it goes away for good, Google's announced the biggest and most popular searches of the past year. Google Search is one of the most widely-used things on the planet. Whether someone's trying to stay updated on current events, find a new place to eat, or remember the name of that hot new show, Google is usually the place most people go for those questions.

With billions of people using Google every single day, that gives the search engine an enormous amount of data to work with. One of the ways Google uses this is with its annual 'Year in Search' overview. Once a year in December, Google's Year in Search highlights the search engine's most popular search queries over the past year. In 2020, some of the year's top searches included 'Election results,' 'Coronavirus,' and 'Kobe Bryant.' Year in Search encapsulates the things people were thinking about the most during a year. Whether it be good, bad, or otherwise, it's a fascinating review of what held people's attention for the past 365 days.

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As hard as it is to believe, it's now that time of year once more. Google just released its Year in Search 2021 results to highlight the biggest and trendiest searches of 2021. Starting with the top global searches, the number one search of the entire year was 'Australia vs India.' That may not mean anything to folks in the U.S., but cricket games between the two were so popular that they secured the number one spot. The same is true of 'India vs England,' which came in as the number two top global search of the year. The number nine and tenth most popular searches of the year were Squid Game and DMX, respectively — highlighting the popularity of Netflix's recent TV show and the sudden passing of rapper Earl Simmons this past April.

Other Top Google Searches Of 2021

A graphic for Google's location-based search

The top global news searches further recap some of the year's most significant events. The number one global news story was Afghanistan due to the U.S. ending its military presence in the country after 20 years. Other top news searches of 2021 included AMC stock, the COVID vaccine, and Dogecoin. If 2021 news can be summarized in three key ways, it's undoubtedly wild investing, getting vaccinated against COVID, and the ridiculous rise of Dogecoin from being a meme to one of the top cryptos on the market.

On the entertainment side of things, top global searches for movies, TV shows, and games are about what you'd expect. The top five most-searched movies of the year include Eternals, Black Widow, Dune, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, and Red Notice. The top five TV shows of the year are no less surprising, including Squid Game, Bridgerton, WandaVision, Cobra Kai, and Loki. And for the top five global games, Google gives the top spots to PopCat, FIFA 22, Battlefield 2042, Monster Hunter Rise, and Resident Evil Village. The only surprise on the list is PopCat, which is apparently a website where people from all around the world can click a picture of a cat to make it make a 'pop' sound. Despite a year of pretty solid video games in a bunch of different niches, this is what made the number one spot. It's pretty amazing stuff.

Let's round things out with some of the top searches in the United States. Google made an entire category this year dedicated to shortages. Here, the top five searches include gas, chlorine, ketchup, food, and chip shortage. There's also a 'Where to buy' section, with the top five searches here being Dogecoin, Shiba coin, PS5, safemoon, and N95 mask. And, most important of all, there were the most-searched memes. Looking at the full list starting with number one, the most popular memes of the year include the following: Bernie Sanders mittens, Hamster, Twisted tea, Squid Game, Sheesh, Red flag, Dab me up, Trade offer, Vin Diesel family, and Suez Canal.

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Source: Google