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The death of Cilla Black in August has been named the biggest search trend in the UK this year by Google.
The technology giant and operator of the world’s biggest search engine has revealed its breakdown of the most common searches of 2015, and the much-loved entertainer’s death at her villa in Spain in August was the most searched for story of the year.
Lady Colin Campbell, the controversial star of this year’s I’m A Celebrity…Get Me Out Of Here! was second on the list, with the Rugby World Cup – hosted in England in the autumn – completing the top three.
Matt Cooke, head of Google’s News Lab in London said: “Homegrown celebrities have generated a lot of interest in particular, while the passing of well-known figures made people want to learn more about them.
“Some of the defining topics and traditions of British life, such as the general election results, the Grand National, and Jeremy Clarkson, have generated a surge in Google searches and will be remembered as events that have characterised the year.”
Former Top Gear presenter Clarkson left the BBC earlier this year and was fourth on the list, followed by the Paris terror attacks of November, the iPhone 6s – which launched in September and the Grand National. The top ten trends were completed by summer blockbuster Jurassic World, the results of the general election and French magazine Charlie Hebdo – the scene of a separate Paris terror attack in January.
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn was confirmed as the top trending politician of the year, with former Liberal Democrats’ leader Charles Kennedy, who passed away in June in second place. Scottish National Party leader Nicola Sturgeon, both Ed and David Miliband and US presidential hopeful He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named also feature.
Google now deals with around 40,000 search queries per second, and more than 1.3 trillion searches a year.
