Divisive US President-elect Donald Trump topped Northlanders' rising news searches this year. Photo / AP
Divisive US President-elect Donald Trump topped Northlanders' rising news searches this year. Photo / AP
Two international phenomena took over Northlanders' Google search trends this year - Donald Trump and Pokemon Go.
Trump and Donald Trump were the number one and two highest rising Google news searches in Northland in 2016, followed by former United Kingdom Independence Party leader Nigel Farage, and unsuccessful presidential candidateHillary Clinton.
Rising news searches were not the overall most searched terms - those belonged to everyday searches including Whangarei, YouTube, Facebook and Google. Rising news searches were terms which increased the most compared to last year.
Northlanders' highest rising YouTube search was once again Trump, with mobile game Pokemon Go the second highest search. Singer Alex Aiono was third, followed by US reality show Dance Moms, Desiigner's hit song Panda, and 14-year-old singer Jacob Sartorius. Bob Marley - who died on May 11, 1981 - Twenty One Pilots and Joseph Parker rounded out the top 10.
Among the highest rising image searches were Nike and Kylie Jenner.
Trump searches peaked surprisingly early, between August 21 and 27, but came close with a 95 rating the week of the November 9 US election.
Ratings were determined by the number of searches compared to the term's peak, which rated 100. For example, a rating of 50 was searched half as many times as the peak.
It seems users dropped the Don's first name early in the cycle - searches for 'Donald Trump' peaked back in February, and only scored a 40 rating the week of the election.
Nationwide, Geonet, Olympics and the US election came out on top of the trending podium, followed by Euro 2016, earthquake NZ and Pokemon Go.
Topping the list of trending New Zealanders was boxer Joseph Parker, followed by All Black Aaron Smith, Olympic bronze medallist pole vaulter Eliza McCartney, Olympic gold medallist kayaker Lisa Carrington and former Bachelor Jordan Mauger.
Internationally, Trump, Usain Bolt and Hillary Clinton topped the list, followed by Michael Phelps, Bernie Sanders and Meghan Markle.
