Top Google searches in lockdown – what is being searched for more now than ever before?

What a year 2020 has been for everyone in the UK! The COVID-19 pandemic has had a serious effect on how we all live and work, not to mention the danger it poses to the health of vulnerable people. Of course, the same is true around the world, where coronavirus lockdowns have had a similarly negative impact on society. What you may not know is just what an effect the pandemic and lockdowns have had on what UK people search for in Google now.

Looking into this deeper is fascinating as it tells you what the nation has been thinking about over lockdown and what it continues to care about. It also shows just what impact the measures to tackle COVID-19 have had on how we live and work. Many of the popular searches now have come out of nowhere to be hunted for in much greater numbers than before.

What have been the top Google searches during this year that we look for now more than ever?

Coronavirus/COVID-19

Of course, you could not look at Google searches in 2020 without mentioning this! Put simply, coronavirus/COVID-19 is the story of 2020 and an issue that every single person in the UK is concerned about still. This was a virus that people hadn’t even heard of until we got towards the March 2020 national lockdown in the UK!

Since then, it has been on all our minds and become something that is searched for on Google in huge numbers. While people search for ‘coronavirus’ or ‘COVID-19’ in general, there are also lots of more specific terms that UK residents look for, including ‘coronavirus symptoms’ and ‘coronavirus news’, which all pull in big search volumes now.

Online games

One consequence of lockdowns this year has been the need for people to stay entertained at home. A look at Google Trends for the period March 2020 to October 2020 shows that the searches for ‘online games’ picked up this year. It really hit large volumes between March and May – with a search rating of 100 in mid-March 2020.

As a national lockdown comes into effect once more, we could well see interest in this term shoot back up again. Interestingly, this covers quite a wide area of games. Many people who search for ‘online games’ may play at no deposit bonus online casinos and use a site such as Gambling Metropolis to find the best place to game at. Others might search for ‘online games’ but be looking for pub quiz apps or video game websites.

Vitamin D

One thing that the ongoing pandemic and lockdowns did was make UK residents more health–conscious. As a result, searches for vitamin D have exploded during 2020. This saw the term searched for 167,000 times across the UK in the period September 2019 to August 2020.

While London was the most popular place for vitamin D searches, the Midlands and North West ran it close. In fact, searches just for ‘vitamin D’specifically outweighed searches for the term ‘vitamins’ in general! Why might this be? It would appear that claims that taking vitamin D could help protect you from COVID-19 sparked the sudden interest in it.

Home working

Next to our health and needing to find ways to keep busy inside, the COVID-19 lockdown has also affected many people’s work. Interestingly, it has been reported that 63% of Brits considered moving due to COVID-19 working conditions. This shows just what a big deal changes to work patterns brought on by lockdowns were to people.Home working was a big change for many, and this saw the volume of searches for it shoot up in 2020.

Looking at the data in Google Trends, it is interesting to see that the interest in this term not only spiked around early March 2020 but has alsobeen on a steady climb again recently. It now sits at a rating of 100 as of late October 2020, which shows that local lockdowns are seeing people search for it more again. Over the whole of 2020 though, the interest in this search term has certainly increased.

COVID-19 and UK lockdowns have changed Google searches

The above are just a few examples of search terms in Google that have come out of nowhere in 2020 and remain popular right now. The overriding reason has been the impact of COVID-19 on how we live and the impact of lockdowns that have been imposed to help fight it. Both of these have changed what people in the UK want to know, what they are concerned about, and what they search for as a result.