What do people most want to know when they search the internet?
Powerball, the lottery that paid out $1.6 billion in a single drawing last year, was the term Americans searched for the most in 2016, according to the search engine Google.
Globally, people were most curious about Pokémon Go, the smartphone game that had players chasing apparitions in public places.
Apart from games — including real ones like the Summer Olympics — deceased rock stars Prince and David Bowie were big draws. The U.S. top 10 list also included Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton and the U.S. election.
Trump ranked Number 3 on the global search list. The latest iPhone ranked second, and a pair of action films also made the top 10.
Internet analysts have estimated that Google handles more than 2 trillion searches annually, or 5.5 billion a day. The company did not provide precise numbers, but said its most frequently searched terms in the U.S. in 2016 were:
- Powerball
- Prince
- Hurricane Matthew
- Pokémon Go
- Slither.io
- Olympics
- David Bowie
- Trump
- Election
- Hillary Clinton
Globally, here’s the list of the most popular search terms:
- Pokémon Go
- iPhone 7
- Donald Trump
- Prince
- Powerball
- David Bowie
- Deadpool
- Olympics
- Slither.io
- Suicide Squad
Google broke down the most popular search terms in 64 countries. In India, the Olympics, Pokémon and the Euro 2016 football tournament piqued people’s interest the most. In Mexico, Pokémon, the Olympics and Juan Gabriel, the singer who died in August, were the most-searched terms.
In the United Kingdom, Euro 2016, Pokémon and David Bowie were tops. In the category of searches of politicians, Trump beat out Theresa May, the new prime minister.