2018: Malaysia’s Year In Search

The nation’s most searched terms, topics, people, and entertainment of 2018

Google yesterday released its annual Malaysian Year in Search, a look back at 12-months of collective trending searches on Google Malaysia to shed light on the unique trending Internet searches of 2018.

Taking the top spot this year is ‘World Cup’, the quadrennial football tournament that took place over four weeks in Moscow. Our historic election year sees the second spot go to ‘SPR’ the Election Commission of Malaysia as eligible voters checked on their status as well as election results. Next on the list is ‘Astro Awani’ the news channel and site — which tremendously benefited from being the go-to news source pre, during and post GE-14. The top 5 is rounded off by heart-wrenching drama series ‘Lafazkan Kalimah Cintamu’ and period drama ‘延禧攻略 (Story of Yanxi Palace).”

The sixth spot on the list goes to ‘BRIM’, the financial aid program for lower-income Malaysians, with  the remainder of the trending top 10 searches being: romantic drama ‘Kekasih Paksa Rela’, former Prime Minister ‘Najib’, the novel-adapted drama ‘Jangan Benci Cintaku’ and current Prime Minister ‘Mahathir’.

Meanwhile, The number one searched for individual goes to former Prime Minister ‘Najib Razak’ after the historical change in government followed by lengthy investigations into his alleged misappropriations. The second and third spot goes to the oldest Prime Minister in Malaysia and the world, ‘Mahathir Mohamad’ and the country’s youngest appointed Minister of Youth and Sports ‘Syed Saddiq’. Former Malaysian First Lady ‘Rosmah Mansor’ appears on the fourth spot while former actress-turned-British royalty Meghan Markle takes the fifth spot for her marriage to Prince Harry.

Rounding off the top 10 trending people of 2018 are: Leader of the Pakatan Harapan coalition, ‘Anwar Ibrahim’, Defence Minister ‘Mat Sabu’, actor and director ‘Farid Kamil’, Chilean footballer ‘Alexis Sanchez’, and popular politician ‘Nurul Izzah’.

“As Google Search continues to be the destination for discovery and topical exploration for Malaysians, we reflect on the prominent search trends, popular individuals and major events that not only sum up our current times, but also eventually our history books.” said Zeffri Yusof, Head of Communications and Public Affairs at Google Malaysia.

Other Trending searches of note:

In addition to showcasing what people were curious about in Malaysia, Google Search tools also offer insights into which topics captured the entire world’s attention in 2018. When google.com.my/2018 goes live yesterday at 4pm, explore the rest of the 2018 Year in Search stories and top trending charts from Malaysia and around the world.

What is Google’s Year in Search?

Google reveals the Internet’s spirit of the times through an exploration of the over one trillion search queries we receive each year. In addition to year end Searches, which highlights the top trends of 2018, we also have several tools that give insight into global, regional, past and present search trends. Google Search tools can never be used to identify individual users because we rely on anonymized, aggregated counts of how often certain search queries occur over time. These tools are available year-round for you to play with, explore, and learn from at google.com.my/2018.