Ajax, Women's World Cup most googled search terms in NL this year
Football was clearly on people's minds in the Netherlands this year. "Ajax" and "WK Voetbal Vrouwen", or the Women's Football World Cup in English, were the most googled search terms in the country in 2019, Google announced in its Trend Reports on Wednesday.
Ajax is currently leading the Eredivisie, though got knocked out of the Champions League on Tuesday. And the Oranje Lionesses placed second in the Women's World Cup this year. Other search terms in the top 10 include Notre Dame, which burned down this year, the European Election, Duncan Laurence - the winner of the Eurovision Song Contest, and Utrecht, likely due to a mass shooting in the city in March.
Top 10 Googled search terms in Netherlands 2019:
- Ajax
- WK Voetbal Vrouwen
- Notre Dame
- Julen
- Duncan Laurence
- Bridget Maasland
- Iris Hond
- Utrecht
- Europese Verkiezingen
- Val van de Berlijnse muur
According to NU.nl, Bridget Maasland and Iris Hond were in the news this year due to their relationships with respectively Andre Hazes and Marco Brosato.
People in the Netherlands were also particularly curious about the meaning of street-slang words 'wollah' - which means "by Allah" or "swear to god", likely a contraction of “wahyat Allah” - and 'huts' - an expression to underline a successful action, popularized by rapper Mouad Locos in his 2018 hit Huts. These two words were the most searched under the "Wat betekent?" category.
The most searched terms under the "what is" category were 'isogram' - a term for a word or phrase without a repeating letter - and 'podcast' - episodic discussion series that can be downloaded or listened to online. The most googled TV shows were 'Chateau Meiland' and 'Ex on the Beach'. The most googled movies were 'Joker' and 'The Wizard of Oz'. And the most googled for song lyrics were for the songs 'Arcade' and 'Hij is van mij'.