The return of load-shedding, a Muslim holy day greeting, and a dramatic World Cup clash between two European football giants were among the top trending topics on Google this week.
Eskom workers have now been on strike for more than a week and it’s affecting the country’s ability to produce electricity. As a result, South Africans are once again experiencing load shedding. As the country’s citizens scrambled to find out when they might be affected, “Eskom load shedding” drew in more than 200 000 searches on Thursday.
On the same day, “Eid Mubarak”, drew in more than 100 000 searches. The Muslim greeting is reserved Eid al-Fitr , the religious holiday that marks the end of Ramadan, which began on Thursday evening and ended on Friday evening. Also drawing in 100 000+ searches was “Russia vs Saudi Arabia”, the opening match of the 2018 FIFA World Cup.
On Friday meanwhile, South Africa’s collective attention turned to Russia where Spain was taking on Portugal in their opening match at the World Cup. The match, which ended 3-3, was filled with drama and most notable for Cristiano Ronaldo’s three goals. Interest in the clash was so high that “Portugal vs Spain” saw more than 200 000 searches on the day.
The next day, sport took a slight back seat with “Happy Fathers Day” (100 000+ searches) beating out “Argentina vs Iceland” (50 000+ searches) and “Nigeria” (50 000+ searches). The Father’s Day love continued on Sunday with “Fathers Day Message” drawing in 50 000+ searches.
Other terms to trend during the week included “Tunisia” (50 000+ searches), “Russia vs Egypt” (50 000+ searches), and “World Cup Fixtures” 50 000+ searches.
Google processes more than 40 000+ search queries every second. This translates to more than a billion searches per day and 1.2 trillion searches per year worldwide. Google trends data is updated hourly and is available on https://www.google.co.za/trends.
Search trends in South Africa tend to be news and sports-driven. People search for things they hear or see on the news, and sports search terms trend several times a week, on average, every week.
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