Murder victim Anne Faber most googled topic in Netherlands this year

People in the Netherlands extraordinarily often searched for information about murdered Anne Faber this year. Her name is in 1st place on a list of most trending search terms in the Netherlands in 2017, which Google released today.

Anne Faber went missing while cycling on September 29th. She was found raped and murdered in a forested area in Zeewolde two weeks later.

The second most popular search term in the Netherlands this year was Stemwijzer, for information on the parliamentary elections in March, followed by Patricia Paay after a sex tape of hers leaked online. Abdelhak Nouri came in fourth place. The young Ajax footballer sustained permanent brain damage after he collapsed on the football field.

Ajax was the most googled Eredivisie club this year, followed by Feyenoord, PSV, Vitesse and AZ. Max Verstappen was the most googled athlete, followed by Abdelhak Nouri, Dirk Kuyt, Arjen Robben and Lieke Martens.

Geert Wilders was the most googled politician, followed by Prime Minister Mark Rutte, former Amsterdam mayor Eberhard van der Laan, GroenLinks leader Jesse Klaver and FvD leader Thierry Baudet. Just after the first election debate in March, Klaver was the most googled politician in the Netherlands.

Eberhard van der Laan was the most googled celebrity who passed away this year. Dutch singer Sandra Reemer came second in this category, followed by Chris Cornell of band Audioslave, Chester Bennington of band Linkin Park, and Playboy magnate Hugh Heffner.

People in the Netherlands were also curious about how PayPal works, with it being the most googled 'how to' question this year. Instagram came in second place, followed by Snapchat, Tinder and Spotify.

In the 'what is' category, people in the Netherlands were most curious about Pentecost. They also wanted to know what is a pangolin - they're scaly anteaters for those who are still curious. Easter, populism and the Confederation Cup came in third, fourth and fifth place.

For its annual overview, Google did not look at actual numbers, but at trending topics - topics that were searched much more often than last year. As a result, search terms that were also common last year, like Donald Trump and Zwarte Piet, did not make this year's ranking.