The first six months of 2021 have been pretty "COVID-heavy" so you'd expect regional Australia to be googling all things coronavirus, right? Ah, no.
COVID-19 queries do figure in the top 10 but so, too, does Bryce from MAFS (Married at First Sight, a "reality TV show" for the gleefully unaware purists). And Bert Newton's leg.
We've crunched the search terms and questions regional Australians tapped into Google and the answers are a delightful mix of surprising and hilarious.
For the top five searches and questions state-by-state, check out the video below.
Who knew the people of NSW needed to know how to apply for a tax file number or that Victorians were unsure of how much water to drink every day and that South Australians were unsure what gin was made from.
In Tasmania quite a few people needed to know how to remove chocolate stains while in the Northern Territorians wanted to know how to say hello in Spanish.
Territorians also wanted to know how long frozen meat could be stored which is probably quite reasonable - well, perhaps more so than Queenslanders who wanted to know how to curl hair with a straightener.
Across the board regional Aussies showed an interest in understanding the term gaslighting, we wanted to more about Prince Philip's death and certainly turned to Google to keep up with COVID-related lockdowns.
THE MOST SEARCHED TERM
COVID, specifically the search "covid vaccine wa", came in at No.3 for all trending searches in regional Australia between January 1 and June 30 this year.
The most searched trending term was "India v England". Cricket fans pushed the 2021 series in England into the gold medal spot ahead of the trading frenzy that involved Game Stop earlier this year. But interest in the regions was strong enough to give search term silver to "Game Stop share price".
Bryce, a particularly polarising character on MAFS, rocketed into No.4 with "Queensland check in app" bagging the fifth spot.
THE MOST ASKED QUESTION
But onto the questions regional Aussies asked - and, wouldn't you know it, MAFS figures at No. 4 again.
The most searched question was: "who won logan vs floyd".
For the uninitiated that was an exhibition boxing match between former five-division world champion Floyd Mayweather Jr and YouTuber Logan Paul. Fittingly, the fight was tagged Bragging Rights.
Instructions on how to buy dogecoin (No.2) and the age of TikTok star Hasbulla (No.3) were questions on the fingertips of Aussie searchers but so too was the status of Bryce and Melissa's relationship (No.4) and the simple question "is MAFS on tonight" was the fifth most searched question.
- *For the purpose of the exercise, the search engine giant defined regional as those made outside of capital cities. Also, data for the ACT is not included as the search volumes outside of Canberra were too small.
Janine Graham
Onetime sports reporter, chief-of-staff, editor and national digital news editor. Email me: janine.graham@austcommunitymedia.com.au
Onetime sports reporter, chief-of-staff, editor and national digital news editor. Email me: janine.graham@austcommunitymedia.com.au
