Robin Williams' death tops Google’s 2014 trending searches marking a miserable year sullied by Ebola, Malaysia Airlines and Isis
The death of actor Robin Williams this August topped 2014’s global Google search terms.
The search giant has revealed in its annual search report that Williams' passing tugged on the heart-strings of millions of fans all over the world, the fallout from which ensured the tragedy was vastly more searched for than the second-placed Fifa World Cup in Brazil. This is despite Twitter announcing last week that the World Cup was the most ever tweeted event.
This year’s top ten list makes for rather miserable reading thanks to the inclusion of Ebola, Malaysia Airlines and ISIS.
1. Robin Williams
2. World Cup
3. Ebola
4. Malaysia Airlines
5. ALS Ice Bucket Challenge
6. Flappy Bird
7. Conchita Wurst
8. ISIS
9. Frozen
10. Sochi Olympics
The disappearance of Malaysia Airline flight MH317 in March boosted by the shooting down of MH17 of over war-torn Ukraine in July, ensured the calamitous airlines' place on the list.
This was followed by the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge which swept the households of social media users all over the world seeing them soaked in ice water in the name of charity. The popularity of the challenge saw Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis searched for more this year than in the previous decade.
In sixth was Flappy Bird, an addictive mobile game created by Dong Nguyen in a weekend. It surged in popularity in February and received double the searches of Destiny, the year's most hyped - and expensive - video game.
The list was weighted by year-on-year growth of terms rather than the sheer volume of searches.
Notably, 2014 was the first year since the list's inception in 2011 that an Apple product did not make the cut.
The findings are collated on a site and visualised in an online film, both created by RGA/London.