Google’s Year in Search 2025: These trending topics spiked big - Search Engine Land

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Google today released its 2025 Year in Search list, but don’t mistake it for a ranking of the “top searches” or the “most searched” terms. This year’s recap focused on trending queries – the topics that grew the fastest compared with 2024. That shift reveals a lot about where Google Search is heading, and how it’s been evolving for years.

Why we care.Google chose to spotlight fast-rising, emerging queries. Freshness has long mattered in search, but the 2025 top trending queries list underscores an accelerating shift: the biggest AI search and SEO opportunities will come from new, developing topics – not evergreen informational ones. Your strongest wins may hinge on queries no SEO tool or LLM visibility platform can surface yet.

What people searched.Searches starting with “tell me about…” jumped 70% from 2024 to 2025, while “how do I…” queries hit an all-time high with a 25% year-over-year increase,Google said. Here are the top 10 trending Google Search queries of 2025 in the U.S.:

Globally, these were the top 10 trending Google Search queries of 2025:

Global and U.S. trends.Here are some of the top trending queries by category, both globally and in the U.S. If a category lists only one name, it ranked the same in both regions.

More U.S. trends.Google also shared a few additional U.S.-only trending queries from 2025:

Bottom line.You want to win on emerging queries before they peak. Spot new trends early and publish before a topic peaks to capture visibility while competition is low. Evergreen content still matters, but the breakout wins come from what’s new – not what’s already known.

About the data.Google explained:

The lists on the Year in Search 2025 Trends website represent thetop trendingqueries, which are the searches that had the highest spike in traffic over a sustained period in 2025 as compared to 2024.

By looking at top trending searches, we’re identifying topics that saw huge spikes in 2025, which means they’re unique to this year compared to last year.

Trending terms generally better identify what people were curious about in 2025 relative to 2024.

The ‘most searched” terms, which consistently feature website names and common terms like “weather,” are not a good indication of recent search trends for many categories for a specific year.

Please refrain from using phrases such as “top searches” or “most searched,” as those would be inaccurate.

The website.Year in Search 2025

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Danny Goodwin

Danny Goodwin is Editorial Director of Search Engine Land &Search Marketing Expo - SMX. He joined Search Engine Land in 2022 as Senior Editor. In addition to reporting on the latest search marketing news, he manages Search Engine Land’s SME (Subject Matter Expert) program. He also helps program U.S. SMX events.

Goodwin has been editing and writing about the latest developments and trends in search and digital marketing since 2007. He previously was Executive Editor of Search Engine Journal (from 2017 to 2022), managing editor of Momentology (from 2014-2016) and editor of Search Engine Watch (from 2007 to 2014). He has spoken at many major search conferences and virtual events, and has been sourced for his expertise by a wide range of publications and podcasts.

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