Australians typed ‘Wordle’ into Google Search more than any other term this year, despite twelve months of inflations, wars, sporting glory, and untimely celebrity deaths.

The popular game Wordle, which caught fire during the pandemic and was later bought by the New York Times, proves to be a good investment for the newspaper, with Australians searching for it more than any news items.

‘Australian Open’ was the second top search term, followed by World Cup, Shane Warne, and Ukraine.

For the ‘Why is…’ searches, “Why is Russia invading Ukraine” was the top (and there appears to be no good answer available), followed by “Why is yoghurt good for females”.

Pricing was clearly on the minds of Australians, with “Why is petrol so expensive” and “Why is lettuce so expensive” the third and fourth most-asked questions.

 

“Australia was the top country in the world searching for ‘floods’, ‘La Nina’ and ‘when will the rain stop’ in 2022 – and search interest for mould reached record levels,” said Camilla Ibrahim, a communications manager at Google Australia.

Among COVID-19 searches, Aussies were asking “can you get COVID twice?”, “how long does COVID last?” and “can dogs get COVID?”.