LAHORE: Cricket, passionately followed in Pakistan, Coronavirus and the US elections were the most trending searches on Google Pakistan search engine in the year 2020.
Google on Wednesday announced its annual Year in Search Pakistan, which looks back at 2020 through the collective eyes of searches on Google Pakistan and offers a perspective on the year's major events, hottest trends and changes in behaviour due to Covid-19 based on searches conducted in Pakistan. The 'Google's Year in Search' reveals the internet's spirit of the times through an exploration of the over one trillion search queries received each year.
This year's trending searches, just like every other year, were dominated by the Pakistani favourite sport in the top 10 rending searches. The series between Pakistan and England was the top trending search on Google followed by Coronavirus while the Pakistan-Zimbabwe series was ranked at third place.
The pandemic and lookdowns pushed the educational institutions to impart education online and hence Google Classroom, a free web service developed by Google for schools that aims to simplify creating, distributing, and grading assignments, ranked in the third position.
As per the Google's ranking, the Pakistanis took a keen interest in the recent US presidential election, which was ranked at fifth position. The rest of the rankings were dominated by cricket.
In the category of 'trending people searches', journalist and human rights activist Marvi Sarmad was the most searched personality on Google followed by actress Uzman Khan who was involved in a controversy with a business tycoon daughter.
US President-elect Joe Biden was the third most searched personality on Google in 2020 followed by Alizeh Shah, Hareem Shah, Minahil Malik, Falak Shabir, Asim Azhar, Esra Bilgiç and Sarah Khan.
The Turkish historical drama, Ertugrul, was topped the category of 'Trending Movies and TV searches of 2020' followed by Mere Paas Tum Ho, Money Heist, Big Boss 14, Mirzapur Season 2, Deewangi, Mera Dil Mera Dushman, Kurulus: Osman, Ehd-e-Wafa and Joker.
The top trending event searched this year in Pakistan was the US election followed by leap day and international women's day. Among the other top 10 trending searches were Australia fire, Gilgit Baltistan election 2020, Beirut blast, Motorway incident, Kabaddi world cup 2020, Under 19 world cup and Khabib vs Gaethje (a martial arts event). Huawei Y9a was the most searched smartphone in Pakistan followed by Infinix Note 7, Vivo V20, iPhone 12, Infinix Hot 9, OPPO F17 pro, Vivo S1, Vivo Y20, Vivo Y51 and Huawei Y6p.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2020