Whitney, Gangnam top Google’s most searched topics in 2012 in US

Washington - Google has released a list of the most searched topics on its search engine in its year-end report.

The top Google searches in 2012 reflected an eclectic year in politics, as Americans queried the lighter side of the news, such as presidential candidates’ gaffes, and the serious, including policy issues like SOPA.

The California-based search giant released the list using both already-public data and internal numbers.

According to Politico, Hurricane Sandy, the storm that wreaked havoc on the East Coast and added a twist to the final days of the presidential election, was the third-highest trending search term worldwide, behind Whitney Houston and Gangnam Style.

Google defined its ‘trending’ metric as measuring ‘search queries with the highest amount of traffic over a sustained period in 2012 as compared to 2011’.

Tech products made their presence felt with iPad 3 being the fourth-highest trending search term worldwide, and the No. 1 trending term in the consumer-electronics category.

iPhone 5, meanwhile, was the third-highest trending term in the images category.

In the events category, Hurricane Sandy led, with the debate over the ill-fated SOPA at No. 4 and “presidential debate” at No. 6.

Notably, no U.S. politicians made the cut for the top 10-highest trending terms in the people category. Houston and Kate Middleton led there.

In the video category, the 3½-minute “Barack Obama vs. Mitt Romney. Epic Rap Battles Of History Season 2” ranked fifth.

“Election 2012” was the third-highest trending search term in the U.S. this year, and the presidential election was second- highest in the events category, the report added.