The top 10 keywords are all brand names, with the exception of weather and the popular word game Wordle, which became a worldwide phenomenon in early 2022.
Overall, brand names dominate the rankings, but other search terms include tools like translators and package tracking and local searches.
2022’s most popular keyword is Facebook, with an average of 213,000,000 searches per month in 2022.
This is closely followed by YouTube, Amazon, weather, and Walmart.
Interestingly, the word “astronaut” was also a top search term, although the exact reason it trended is unclear.
Perhaps it relates to the James Webb telescope that brought back some mind-blowing images in 2022 or the rise of celebrities announcing plans to travel to space.
Either way, it’s definitely something to watch in 2023!
With the help of the great data research tool Ahrefs, we were able to surface the 100 most searched global keywords as of December 16, 2022.
To keep things PG-13, we removed all porn-related keywords.
Ranking Keyword Global Volume
1 facebook 144,300,000
2 youtube 143,800,000
3 amazon 119,700,000
4 weather 95,310,000
5 walmart 74,420,000
6 google 70,190,000
7 wordle 61,620,000
8 gmail 59,920,000
9 target 50,470,000
10 home depot 47,050,000
11 google translate 43,470,000
12 yahoo mail 36,850,000
13 yahoo 36,760,000
14 costco 33,690,000
15 fox news 33,490,000
16 starbucks 33,100,000
17 food near me 29,930,000
18 translate 28,190,000
19 instagram 25,670,000
20 google maps 25,560,000
21 walgreens 25,500,000
22 best buy 24,510,000
23 nba 23,820,000
24 mcdonalds 23,800,000
25 restaurants near me 23,630,000
26 nfl 23,460,000
27 amazon prime 22,350,000
28 cnn 22,020,000
29 traductor 21,670,000
30 weather tomorrow 21,480,000
31 espn 20,010,000
32 lowes 19,790,000
33 chick fil a 19,200,000
34 news 18,880,000
35 food 18,660,000
36 zillow 18,230,000
37 craigslist 18,130,000
38 cvs 17,950,000
39 ebay 17,890,000
40 twitter 17,280,000
41 wells fargo 17,130,000
42 usps tracking 17,030,000
43 bank of america 17,010,000
44 calculator 16,250,000
45 indeed 14,800,000
46 nfl scores 14,500,000
47 google docs 14,490,000
48 etsy 14,440,000
49 netflix 13,830,000
50 taco bell 13,750,000
51 shein 13,060,000
52 astronaut 12,990,000
53 macys 12,950,000
54 kohls 12,750,000
55 youtube tv 12,480,000
56 dollar tree 12,310,000
57 gas station 12,000,000
58 coffee 11,740,000
59 nba scores 11,710,000
60 roblox 11,410,000
61 restaurants 11,250,000
62 autozone 11,080,000
63 pizza hut 11,070,000
64 usps 10,860,000
65 gmail login 10,810,000
66 dominos 10,750,000
67 chipotle 10,440,000
68 google classroom 10,190,000
69 tiempo 10,080,000
70 hotmail 10,030,000
71 aol mail 9,970,000
72 burger king 9,970,000
73 facebook login 9,960,000
74 google flights 9,790,000
75 sqm club 9,750,000
76 maps 9,720,000
77 subway 9,580,000
78 dow jones 9,570,000
79 sam’s club 9,540,000
80 motel 9,350,000
81 breakfast 9,340,000
82 english to spanish 9,310,000
83 gas 9,280,000
84 fedex 9,240,000
85 walmart near me 9,170,000
86 old navy 9,160,000
87 fedex tracking 9,160,000
88 southwest airlines 9,100,000
89 ikea 9,070,000
90 linkedin 8,840,000
91 airbnb 8,670,000
92 omegle 8,610,000
93 planet fitness 8,530,000
94 pizza 8,370,000
95 spanish to english 8,370,000
96 google drive 8,360,000
97 msn 8,330,000
98 dunkin donuts 8,310,000
99 capital one 8,310,000
100 dollar general 8,280,000
Although this is a great list of keywords, you could almost re-title the list “the most popular brands in the world” instead.
The brands are so well-known they end up searched more than many common terms — such as how we don’t even look up a “search engine” these days, we “Google” instead.