Google Year in Search 2021: Covid-19, Tokyo Olympics Bag Top Spot In News; Free Fire Tops Overall Trending List

‘Near me’ searches on Google was especially evocative this year with searches on Covid Vaccine, Covid tests, Covid hospital, as well as oxygen cylinders and CT scans topping the list.

Google Year in Search 2021: Covid-19, Tokyo Olympics Bag Top Spot In News; Free Fire Tops Overall Trending List/Google

New Delhi: As 2021 draws to an end, Google India on Wednesday announced its Year in Search results that essentially recaps the top search trends of 2021 in the country. According to the search engine giant, 2021 has been a year of resilience, determination, and coming back stronger and that is what Year in Search 2021 results suggest. ‘Near me’ searches on Google was especially evocative this year with searches on Covid Vaccine, Covid tests, Covid hospital, as well as oxygen cylinders and CT scans topping the list. 

Covid-19, Black Fungus and Tokyo Olympics on top in News category

Covid-19 continued to bag the spotlight in the News category and there was continued interest around key global events and topics such as the Tokyo Olympics, Black Fungus, Afghanistan, and West Bengal elections.

"People actively searched for important and relevant information with queries like how to register for Covid vaccine, how to download vaccine certification, and how to increase oxygen level being the top three ‘How to’ searches this year. In ‘What is’ category searches, the queries ranged from what is Black Fungus, what is Taliban, what is remdesivir, and to the evidently academic what is the factorial of hundred?," the company said in a statement.

Covid vaccine and COWIN trended massively in 2021

With a massive interest around Covid-19 and vaccination, the commencement of the world’s largest vaccination drive in the world (in India) saw searches for COWIN and Covid Vaccine that trended highly as people sought information around the vaccinations options and their availability.

In terms of games, Free Fire was the lone gaming entry that made it to the overall trending list, thus, reflecting the massive popularity of the battle royale game.

In terms of the overall list of queries, cricket continued to dominate the charts in 2021, with the Indian Premier League and ICC T20 World Cup filling the top spots. Interest around football was centre and forward, with the Euro Cup, and Copa America also featuring on the list. Another high point of the year was the remarkable performance of the Indian sportspersons at the ‘Tokyo Olympics’.

Interest in regional cinema grew in 2021

According to the company, 2021 saw a strong interest in regional cinema, paving the way for Jai Bhim, a Tamil blockbuster, securing the top spot on the Movies list, followed by Bollywood blockbuster Shershaah. Radhe and Bell Bottom were the other Hindi movies that surged on the trending charts. Highly anticipated Hollywood movies like Godzilla vs Kong and Eternals rounded up the list of the top trending movies of this year.