Top Google trends this week.
Politics once again played a major role in South Africa’s Google searches this week, thanks largely to the announcement of Cyril Ramaphosa's reshuffled cabinet. In the wake of the announcement, people scrambled to find out more about the people occupying the ministries. Standard Bank, meanwhile, trended for reasons it would rather forget.
On Monday night, nearly two hours after originally scheduled, Cyril Ramaphosa announced his first cabinet since coming into office. Unsurprisingly, interest was incredibly high. The term “Cabinet Reshuffle” saw more than 200 000 searches on the day.
At the same time, people were looking for information on some of the characters brought into the cabinet. On Monday, the two who sparked the most interest were David Mabuza and Bheki Cele, who each received more than 50 000 searches. Mabuza, a former Mpumalanga premier and current ANC deputy president, was catapulted into the office of deputy president left vacant by Ramaphosa’s ascent. Cele, a former police commissioner, was made Minister of Police.
Other cabinet figures who received notable search interest include Zweli Mkhize (5 000+ searches), Nomvule Mokonyane (5 000+ searches), Gwede Mantashe (5 000+ searches), Bathabile Dlamini (20 000+ searches), Pravin Gordhan (10 000+ searches), and Malusi Gigaba (10 000+ searches).
On Wednesday meanwhile, searches for Standard Bank spiked. The 50 000+ searches it received were largely due to the fact that its systems were down, preventing people from making payments. That this happened at the end of the month, a critical time for all businesses, only served to make things worse.
Earlier in the week, the country took time to mourn a Bollywood Legend. ‘Sridevi’ was searched for more than 50 000 times in the wake of her untimely passing.
Given South Africa’s love of football, it should hardly be surprising that it received some major search attention over the weekend. Both Manchester United and Arsenal saw more than 50 000 searches on Saturday and Sunday respectively.
Google processes more than 40 000+ search queries every second. This translates to more than a billion searches per day and 1.2 trillion searches per year worldwide. Google trends data is updated hourly and is available on
Search trends in South Africa tend to be news and sports-driven. People search for things they hear or see on the news, and sports search terms trend several times a week, on average, every week. Edited By: Darryl Linington
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