'Jobs near me', 'Priya Prakash Varrier'- and other things Indians asked Google this year

Updated: Thursday, December 20, 2018, 13:29 [IST]

New Delhi, Dec 13: The search-engine giant announced the results of its 2018 Year in Search on Wednesday to reveal the year's major moments and top trends based on what Indians were searching for.

Malayalam actor Priya Prakash Varrier, actor Priyanka Chopra and her spouse Nick Jonas were among the top most searched personalities featured in Google India's 'Year in Search' results, recapping the top search trends of 2018 in India.

Jobs near me, Priya Prakash Varrier- and other things Indians asked Google this year

Google is also the place to search for all the 'How to..', and 'What is' queries and for 2018, terms such as 'What is the kiki challenge' and 'How to solve a Rubik's cube' were trending all time high throughout the year. The list of 'Near me' queries came up mostly for mobile stores, supermarkets, gas stations, and cash points. People also searched for jobs near them on Google considerably.

The Google searches for the 'jobs near me' have also steadily risen over the past four-and-a-half years in India, with search interest surging in the last two years.

A graph of the interest in the search phrase "jobs near me" between January 2004 and December 2018 (as of 36 hours before Wednesday) on Google shows that interest in the phrase remained largely flat between January 2004 and May 2014 - with a few blips during the period. Then, it started crawling upwards.

Google's new tool has alsso helped in tracking the results and while announcing about another new tool, the Google said, as reported by The Indian Express, "in Q4 of 2017, we saw a jump of more than 45 per cent in jobs search queries compared to the previous year. More than 50 per cent of job-related queries originates from mobile which is unsurprising for India where the majority of Internet users are getting online from their smartphones. And these mobile-based queries are up nearly 90 per cent year on year."