Looking back, many big events, wins, and milestones have marked these past 365 days. Before the calendar clocks over, here's a glance at the most significant moments in news, sporting events, along with the personalities, and top-of-mind questions that have captured the minds of India's internet users -- bringing you our 2018 Year in Search recap.
This year in the top 10 overall list, sporting events along with entertainment are the two topics that dominated search queries. Interestingly football pipped cricket in the overall search listing, with questions around FIFA topping those around the IPL events. Also making it to the list were searches for children's shows including Baal Veer and Motu Patlu! Rounding up our overall list were queries relating to the Rajinikanth/Akshay blockbuster Robot 2.0.
On the topic of movies, besides Robot 2.0 topping the heap of movie queries, there were a host of other Indian movies that comprised the top 10 list including Baaghi 2, Tiger Zinda Hai and Dhadak. The three Hollywood movies that made it to this list all happened to be Marvel blockbusters: Avengers: Infinity War, Black Panther, and Deadpool 2. On the music front, the songs that ruled the roost included Neha Kakkar's Dilbar Dilbar, Arijit Singh's Tera Fitoor and others, where the lone English entrant was the evergreen Latin hit Despacito, which also figured in our list last year!
Among the personalities that took prominence in Search this year, topping the list is Priya Prakash Varrier with her wink that went viral, followed by none other than Priyanka Chopra's spouse, Nick Jonas. Priyanka Chopra, came in at fourth place, with Sapna Choudhary making it to the top three. Indicating the undeniable interest in weddings, we also saw Meghan Markle figuring in the list of most-searched-for personalities.
In general news, we saw a wide range of topics that reflected the zeitgeist of Search users -- three weddings figured prominently here: Priyanka Chopra/Nick Jonas, Deepika Padukone/Ranveer Kapoor, and Sonam Kapoor/Anand Ahuja. Other topics that grabbed attention included queries around the world's largest statue, the Statue of Unity, unveiled in Gujarat earlier this year. Rounding off the list were a span of news topics including Section 377, the union budget, bitcoin, even the Nipah virus.
Among the most interesting searches were those centered around 'How to..', and 'What is…', which saw a wide variety of asks spanning 'What is the kiki challenge', as well as 'How to solve a Rubik's cube'. The list of 'Near me…' queries indicated the highest interest for mobile stores, supermarkets, gas stations, and cash points, with jobs near me also in the reckoning.
View the complete 2018 India-specific lists and global trends in detail; and check out over a thousand global top-ten lists across pop culture, sports, music, politics, news, and more, from more than 75 countries.
"Not everyone is looking for an answer; often people just want to be heard." ~ Laurie Buchanan