What are the most popular searches on any given search engine? Many search engines and other websites track the top searches users are performing on their platform, either in real-time or in archived lists that you can use to discover trends.

Researching what people are searching for on the web is a great way to keep up with popular buzz, figure out what people are looking for and give it to them on your blog or website, monitor the latest trends, and understand what trends might be coming up.

Below are some of the best methods.

Google Trends

Google is one of the most visited websites in the world, so finding the most searched items on Google is the single best way to know what people are searching for.The best way to do this is with Google Trends, which provides several ways to monitor the most searched words and to see how a particular search has performed over time.

Visit the Explore page to see the current top searches and most popular search topics. You can change the tool to show rising search queries to find which search terms are performing better than they were the last time they were checked.

You can adjust the time range from as recent as the past hour to several years ago, or enter a custom range. Another filter lets you see trending and top searches from Google Images, YouTube, Google News, and Google Shopping.

The Daily Search Trends section, in particular, is where you'll find today's trending web searches. Change the country to tailor the results to a different location.

Realtime Search Trends reveals trending stories over the last 24 hours. You can change the category to filter the results by stories about business, sports, entertainment, and other categories.

Another useful feature is exploring the most searched words related to any topic. For example, you could typeAndroidto see related queries ordered by popularity. 

Another Google service you might be interested in that lets you follow web content is Google Alerts. You can use it to track searches around a particular topic, or even to see if people are searching for you or your business.

X/Twitter

Want to get up-to-the-second updates on what people are interested in all over the world? X (formerly Twitter) is the place to be.

Log in to your account to see theWhat's happeningsection off to the right. Listed there are the top stories people are talking about right now. By default, you'll see trends that are tailored to you and your interests.

Visit the Trendingpage for stories and to find hashtags in your country. Select the gear/settings button to change the location the platform uses to pick stories.

Trending tweets are available from the mobile app, too, via the search tab.

Bing, Yahoo & Reddit

These search engines have identical features when it comes to finding popular searches. All you have to do to see what's popular on Bing or Yahoo is select the text box and read through the trending search items.

Reddit provides similar functionality, but selecting the search bar lists a handful of trending articles instead of searches.

YouTube

This wildly popular video streaming site is also a good way to see what people are searching for. Visit the Trending page on YouTube, or theTrending tab in the app, to see what's popular right now.

You can filter the results by music, gaming, and movies. You don't need to be logged in to see the results.

To see trending videos from other countries, use the menu button at the top of the page to change the location. If you're logged in, select your image at the top right, and thenLocation.

Use the 'Trending' Section of Popular Websites

Another way to see what people are searching for on the internet is to browse the trending areas of popular websites. We already saw how to do this with some search engines and social media sites, but most other popular websites include a similar feature.

For example, there's a way to view what's hot right now on Reddit and which Reddit posts are rising in popularity. It's a good place to see what the internet is talking about because users post content regularly. You can also see what's trending on Reddit in specific categories, such as in the news section.

Some other examples include BuzzFeed, The New York Times, Wikipedia, Google News, and TikTok.

Analytics Services

You can also find the most searched terms that people are entering into search engines to reach a specific website or web page. SEMrush is one great way to do this.

Enter any URL to see the top keywords by traffic and other search statistics. You can pay for deeper insights.

End-of-the-Year Search Summaries

Many search engines and websites put out a yearly list of their top searches throughout the year; it's a nice way to capture lots of data and see what was trending in a variety of topics all over the world.

This happens every year for all the major search engines around November or December. In addition to the top searches, most search engines give you the option to drill down into the data and get a chronological snapshot of why that particular search was getting so much traction at that time. This can give insights that can help with research, especially.

We keep a list of Bing's top searches.