The Year in Search Film, Social and Lists Data Methodology
How to understand 2024's Year in Search
Google Trends provides a unique look at what the world is searching for, and what it seeks to better understand. Year in Search reveals the breakout questions, moments, and individuals the world searched for throughout the year. These searches reflect specific moments in time and illuminate our shared experiences and cultural events that mattered most around the globe.
The Year in Search film
The Year in Search film is rooted in Google Trends data and features a series of breakout queries.
A “breakout” designation means a person, movement, topic, landmark or moment was searched more than 5000% in 2024 globally compared to the previous year. For example, being a “breakout lorem ipsum” means lorem ipsum grew by more than 5000% this year.
The campaign highlights individuals and moments based on both cultural influence and historical impact, and it's important to note that this campaign is not exhaustive of every person, movement, or moment who fits the criteria of “breakout.”
Using internal Google Trends tools, the “breakout” person, movement, or moment in each category is calculated using anonymous and aggregated Google Trends data samples from January 1, 2024 to November 23, 2024, worldwide.
- Breakout queries are identified worldwide for 2024 on November 23, 2024 in English. Breakout queries that are validated “worldwide” do not include the following countries: China, Iran, and North Korea.
- The breakout Trends are editorially aggregated in the film, with at times search query themes identified and grouped together for purposes of one breakout. In the film, every item shown is a breakout person, movement or moment.
The Year in Search Lists
The Year in Search lists online show search queries and terms that accelerated more than any others in the past year. These are ‘Trending’.
- Trending searches are those that have increased the most in 2024, that had the highest spike this year as compared to the previous year.
- Data is sourced from January 1, 2024 to November 23, 2024.
- Topic is a group of terms that share the same concept in different languages, referring to a person, moment or movement.
You can find out more about Google Trends here.
Local Year in Search (US only)
Local Year in Search highlights the top trending searches across all US metropolitan areas this year. Trending searches are defined as search terms with more search interest in 2024 compared to the previous year.
Local Lists encompasses all 210 U.S. designated market areas (DMAs), as defined by Nielsen, using Google Trends data from January 1, 2024 to November 18, 2024.
Trending searches in each category are calculated using anonymous and aggregated Google Trends data, specifically:
- Local trending lists are calculated based on search interest related to a Topic
- Local trending lists are calculated based on searches including a search term
- Local trending lists are based on comprehensive lists ranked in descending order