Google Year in Search 2025: How user queries have changed and what it means for marketers

Google published the annual Year in Search 2025 overview, focused not on “the most popular searches,” but on trending queries — the topics that demonstrated the fastest growth compared to 2024. This approach shows how user behavior is transforming and where the search ecosystem is headed in the coming years.

Why this matters for business and SEO

The publication of Google Year in Search 2025 highlights a strategically important shift: real growth opportunities for businesses today lie not in highly competitive evergreen topics, but in fast-growing trends that are only beginning to form in the information space. A company’s ability to quickly identify a new query, promptly create relevant content, and secure visibility before competitors enter the niche is becoming a key factor of digital competitiveness.

For SEO, this is no longer about classic long-term optimization — it is about dynamic content models that respond to unpredictable, sudden spikes of interest. The importance of monitoring weak signals, fast A/B cycles, and building content pipelines around topics that may become resonant within weeks is increasing.

A particularly telling indicator is the sharp increase in conversational, natural queries formulated by users in a dialogue-with-AI manner:

– queries beginning with “tell me about…” grew by 70%,
– “how do I…” queries reached a record level of +25% year-over-year.

This indicates a shift in user expectations: they want deeper explanations, personalized answers, and context that reflects a specific life or business situation. Traditional universal content no longer satisfies these needs.

This behavior also reflects Google’s rapid move toward generative search — a search experience that resembles a dialogue with a consultant rather than a list of links. For businesses, this means:

– the need to optimize content for structured, clear, logical explanations,
– active use of microformats, FAQ blocks, and practical instructions,
– creating materials that are easily interpreted by LLM models,
– strengthening the role of expertise, transparency, and factual accuracy, which Google considers when generating responses.

Top trending queries of 2025

Google published two lists — one for the U.S. and one for the global market.

U.S. — fastest-growing queries

• Charlie Kirk
• KPop Demon Hunters
• Labubu
• iPhone 17
• One Big Beautiful Bill Act
• Zohran Mamdani
• DeepSeek
• Government shutdown
• FIFA Club World Cup
• Tariffs

Global ranking

• Gemini
• India vs England
• Charlie Kirk
• Club World Cup
• India vs Australia
• DeepSeek
• Asia Cup
• Iran
• iPhone 17
• Pakistan and India

The lists are dominated by technologies (Gemini, DeepSeek), international sports, political developments, and cultural phenomena or media content.

Category trends: what defined 2025

Google also highlighted categories that saw the highest spikes in interest:

• News: Charlie Kirk assassination / One Big Beautiful Bill Act
• Actors: Mikey Madison / Pedro Pascal
• Athletes: Terence Crawford / Shedeur Sanders
• Games: Arc Raiders / Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
• Movies: Anora / KPop Demon Hunters
• Podcasts: The Charlie Kirk Show / New Heights
• Google Maps (bookstores): Livraria Lello / Powell’s City of Books
• Google Maps (transit stations): Kyoto Station / Grand Central Terminal

Additional U.S.-only trends included unexpected surges: AI action figure, viral recipes, and “why do kids say…” type queries.

What this means for marketers and SEO specialists

The main conclusion is clear:
brands that succeed are those that capture trends at the earliest stage.

In 2025, Google’s algorithms shift even further toward:

– rapid response,
– relevance to new topics,
– content that fits conversational query formats,
– adaptation to AI-driven search.

This means that traditional long-term SEO based on evergreen topics no longer guarantees maximum growth. The highest potential lies in emerging topics, where competition is minimal.

For marketing teams in medium and large businesses, this means the need to:

– build systems for monitoring new queries,
– react quickly with content,
– experiment with new formats (AI-friendly structures, dialogue-style blocks, personalized responses),
– strengthen analytics for identifying promising niches.

Data source

Google notes that the lists include trending queries — those that demonstrated the greatest sustained growth in traffic during 2025 compared to 2024. These are not “most popular search queries,” and Google explicitly asks to avoid phrases such as “top searches” or “most searched terms.”

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