World Cup Final, the most Googled event in history

Google is consistently the most visited website in the world, with its searches being part of the experience of using the internet in every country where it is not banned. However, in its entire 25-year history, no other major event has been searched for as often as the 2022 World Cup final. Google CEO Sundar Pichai announced on Twitter that Google Search saw record traffic at the time of the final.

Google saw its highest traffic in 25 years during the World Cup final

In fact, the World Cup was probably the most watched event in history, with access to information and the ability to watch the matches from anywhere making this possible. Those who couldn’t watch the match live constantly sought out information about it, and real-time score notifications helped sports fans stay in constant touch with the event.

The final was also a very tense one, with many goals, impressive phases and twists and turns. What looked like an easy win for Argentina in the first half turned into a match that was played down to the last second, with lots of extra time and a final decided by kicks from 11 yards.

Pichai noted in his message that during the more than two hours of the match, it was as if the whole planet was looking for information about one thing.

Search recorded its highest ever traffic in 25 years during the final of #FIFAWorldCup , it was like the entire world was searching about one thing!

– Sundar Pichai (@sundarpichai) December 19, 2022

Interestingly, however, there were other events during this year that could have been of greater or even greater interest than the finals of a sporting competition. The invasion of Ukraine in February was a major world event, for example, or the loosening of restrictions on the Coronavirus pandemic. Yet the whole planet seems to have chosen to rally around a sporting event that would normally symbolise joy.

However, even the World Cup has been highly controversial, largely because of the way the host country was chosen over a decade ago, but also because of Qatar’s disregard for human rights and very strict laws there.