Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Web
  3. News

Blood moon eclipse marks Google’s first weekly search trends report

David Nield
By
blood moon eclipse marks googles first weekly search trends report
Image used with permission by copyright holder

If you’ve always enjoyed Google’s yearly Zeitgeist reports, covering what the world has been searching for over the past twelve months, you’ll be pleased to know the tech giant is now introducing a weekly search trends post that provides more regular updates about what’s on our collective mind.

As anyone with a calendar would have been able to guess, queries relating to Easter topped the first round of charts published by Google — there were more searches for “Good Friday” and “Palm Sunday” than for the Pope. Many of us were searching for ingredients associated with Passover meals, while in the U.S. search terms related to tax returns rose sharply ahead of the April 15 deadline.

Recommended Videos

There were over 5 million searches related to the rare “blood moon” lunar eclipse which happened on Tuesday. Other popular topical searches were for the Boston Marathon (one year on from the terrorist attack), Gabriel García Márquez (the Colombian author who died this week) and Chelsea Clinton (now expecting her first child).

Related

Entertainment topics were also extensively researched: queries for who did what to whom on Game of Thrones soared up to fourth place on Monday, proving that millions of the show’s viewers haven’t read the books. Gone Girl was another hot entertainment topic with the release of the first trailer from David Fincher’s upcoming thriller film.

“If you’re interested in exploring trending topics on your own, check out Google Trends,” advises Google Blog Editor Emily Wood. “And starting today, you can also sign up to receive emails on your favorite terms, topics, or Top Charts for any of 47 countries.”

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
David Nield
David Nield
Contributor
Dave is a freelance journalist from Manchester in the north-west of England. He's been writing about technology since the…
Google starts showing virtual doctor options in Search and Maps
Google Logo

As part of efforts to slow the spread of the coronavirus, some medical facilities are currently discouraging visits in person. But pandemic or no pandemic, many ailments won't simply disappear and so sometimes we need to get help.

In such a scenario, Google wants to assist. The web giant recently announced it will begin highlighting health facilities that offer consultations over a video connection, enabling you to avoid a potentially busy waiting room thereby reducing person-to-person contact.

Read more
Yelp condemns Google’s practices in senate antitrust hearing
social media privacy apps settlement yelp phone 0001

Yelp thinks Google has broken antitrust laws, saying  at a hearing focused on the search giant that the company stifles competition and lies to consumers . 

Tuesday’s U.S. Senate hearing titled "Examining Self-Preferencing by Digital Platforms” gave Yelp the chance to speak out against its biggest competitor, CNBC reports. Luther Lowe, Yelp’s senior vice president of public policy, said that Yelp has had many concerns over the years about Google’s ratings and reviews feature on its search engine. 

Read more
Google adds icons to image searches to offer more info on thumbnails
Google's Logo

Google is constantly tweaking the appearance and functionality of its popular search engine, with the latest change aimed at image searches.

Rolling out by the end of the week, the new feature means that when looking for images using Google on desktop, you’ll see small icons at the bottom left corner of each listed thumbnail that offer more information about the page to which they are linked.

Read more