The Google Trends end of year report is always interesting. The top 3 this year aren't searches - they're navigation. Google is the Homepage. Still. For a whole lot of people.
We used to say this at GDS and 11 years ago in January 2012 I tried to explain What does "Google is the homepage" mean in real life? I didn't invent the expression, of course, I first heard it from Richard Pope who wrote about it on the GDS alpha blog in April 2011, when he laid out A few design rules for Alpha.gov.uk.
I found an earlier mention of it, in December 2008 on the Guardian written by Jemima Kiss. 14 years ago she explains the above example better than I have done. "The first six months of the year were particularly Facebook crazy, but that still doesn't entirely explain why Facebook would be the most searched term of 2008 in the UK. It's not like the URL - Facebook.com - is particularly hard to remember, so perhaps Google is the homepage and people like my Mum forget to type the address into the address bar instead of the Google search box..."
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