What did Africans ask Google in 2019? [SciTech]

Google, the world’s biggest online search engine and nearly everyone’s go-to place for answers says the year 2019 was all about heroes and sheroes, following analysis of the most asked questions across the globe.

The Google Year in Search, which is a compilation of the top searches, personalities, events and search queries that had a spike in traffic over the last 12 months.

Africa’s ranking

African countries featured on Google’s much anticipated Trends list for this year include Egypt, Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa. Data from Ghana, Senegal, Uganda and Zimbabwe which have been previously featured is unavailable for this year, according to Google.

Like in past years, Africa’s top searches hardly feature in the top global lists, likely because, the internet penetration rate across the continent is still low compared to the rest of the world.

A report by the International Telecommunications Union released last month revealed that 71% of sub-Saharan Africa’s population is offline, which is the highest number of people without access to internet connection.

Egypt’s top searches

In Egypt, sports was a dominant theme among the Google searches with the African Nations Cup, Egyptian League matches and the Al-Ahly vs. Al-Hilal match featuring in the top 10 searches.

Thanos and Muhammad Ali were among the top 10 searched personalities in the North African country.

READ MORE: Egypt’s top Google searches in 2019Kenya

Kenya’s searches reflected the biggest local stories and developments including the roll-out of new passports, huduma number, filing of tax returns, KCPE results and the census.

The most searched personalities included public figures that died like Safaricom CEO Bob Collymore and lawmaker Ken Okoth.

READ MORE: Kenya’s top Google searches in 2019Nigeria

Nigeria had even more categories including the most searched actors, lyrics and sports people. Some of the top searches in Africa’s most populous country were the Nations Cup, the Women’s World Cup, the February elections, the Xenophobia protests in South Africa and the Big Brother reality show among others.

The how to searches here were interesting as people wanted to know how to make egusi, how to ask a girl out and how to reduce belly fat among others.

READ MORE: Nigeria’s top Google searches in 2019South Africa

South Africa, which has the continent’s richest trends list depicts a healthy mix of politics, sports and musical content in addition to both local and internationally relevant Google search queries.

The list features the Rugby World Cup, Cricket World Cup, Nations Cup, election results, load shedding and Black Friday specials.

Foreign personalities like the United Kingdom’s prime minister, Boris Johnson, Zimbabwe’s opposition leader Nelson Chamisa and former president Robert Mugabe were some of the most searched people.

South Africans also wanted to know why cornflakes were invented, what Bosasa, media and teenage pregnancy are.

READ MORE: South Africa’s top Google searches in 2019The video of Google’s Year in Search features Kenya’s record breaking athlete Eliud Kipchoge, South Africa’s Rugby World Cup winning team and Guinea Bissau’s athlete Braima Dabo who helped an exhausted competitor across the 5,000 metres finish line, among the biggest global heroes of the year 2019.

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@danmumbere