War and sport dominate Swiss Google searches in 2022

Police officers look at fragments of Russian rockets that hit Kharkiv, Ukraine, on December 3 Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.

The war in Ukraine and sporting events had people heading for search engine Google more than anything else this year. The search terms of the year were “Ukraine”, followed by “WM 2022” for the football World Cup, currently underway in Qatar, and the online game “Wordle”.

Euro 2021 and Covid remained dominant terms, Google announced on Wednesday. With the beginning of the war in Ukraine in February, the search interest in the country and current events there increased.

The top ten search trends in Switzerland this year also included tennis star “Novak Djokovic” and the “Australian Open” tennis tournament. The Serb was denied entry and thus participation in the tournament due to a lack of Covid vaccination.

The list also included the European football tournament “Nations League”, “Jeffrey Dahmer” (a US serial murderer who was the subject of a Netflix series), “Olympia 2022”, “Queen Elizabeth II” (who died in September after 70 years on the throne) and “Johnny Depp” (an American actor whose court case with ex-wife Amber Heard was hard to avoid).

Google said the most common questions asked by users included “How long is omicron contagious for?”, “What is an oligarch?” and “Why is Russia attacking Ukraine?”.