1.2 trillion searches.

146 languages.

What did the world search for in 2012?

2012 was a year of big moments, from global games to historical elections and everything in between. With this site, we’ve analyzed over one trillion queries to showcase what the world searched for.

We studied an aggregation of over one trillion searches (or queries) that people typed into Google Search this year. We used data from multiple sources, including Google Trends and internal data tools. We filtered out spam and repeat queries to build lists that best reflect the spirit of 2012.

Trending

The “trending” queries are the searches that had the highest amount of traffic over a sustained period in 2012 as compared to 2011.

Most Searched

The “most searched” queries are the most popular terms for 2012—ranked in order of the queries with the largest volume of searches.

Privacy & Security

All the searches we studied are anonymous. No personal information was used.

Searches (world)

1. Whitney Houston
2. Gangnam Style
3. Hurricane Sandy
4. iPad 3
5. Diablo 3
6. Kate Middleton
7. Olympics 2012
8. Amanda Todd
9. Michael Clarke Duncan
10. BBB12

— Google