When it comes to uncovering information, and unearthing the answers to life’s endless stream of questions, there are few more popular ways to do so than on the world’s favourite search engine. Thanks to Google, you’re only ever a few key taps away from the information you need - whether on your computer or mobile device.
On average, four billion searches are performed every day on Google, whose early company mission statement was “to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful”.
Sometimes, however, the actual questions that people ask can turn out to be more interesting than the answers themselves. Prepare to be enlightened, as we walk you through some of the most popular and surprising things people search for on Google.
“Who is running for president?”
Despite the estimated $6bn spent in the build up to this year’s US presidential elections over a matter of months, plus the endless hours of global media coverage, this was one of the most popular search terms around going into the final 24 hours of the campaign.
“Paintings of women that were crucified”
It’s been estimated that around 600 people per day are tapping this into Google search. Quite why this should be of interest at any time of the year is uncertain, but it does seem to be a bit on the morbid side.
“Why is my poop green?”
The idea of people seeking the answers to potential health issues on Google isn’t all that unusual in itself, though you’d hope that anyone who needed this question answering might pay their GP a visit first.
“How to make your own ouija board”
We’ve no idea what would possess so many people (sorry, we couldn’t help it) to type this into Google search, but it would seem that for some, a friendly game of scrabble doesn’t quite cut it.
“What would a chair look like if your knees bent the other way”
We can’t imagine that there are too many people in this particular predicament, but nevertheless there does seem do be a fairly high level of interest around this term.
“I want a diagram of how to butcher a beef cow”
Of all the life skills you could possibly wish to acquire, we wouldn’t imagine that this would be all that high up on the list for the non-farming population. Still, this has been a popular search term for over four years.
