Google is celebrating its 20th birthday this year. Econsultancy columnist Rebecca Sentance has compiled ten surprising search trends by analyzing Google’s 20 years of data.

Sentance says, “Officially, Google was incorporated on 4th September, 1998 – making it 20 years and a few weeks old today – but it has often chosen to mark its birthday on 27th September instead. Few people know exactly why, though The Telegraph speculates that it’s because Google’s first ever “birthday Doodle” was published on this day in 2002.

Whatever the reason, Google has released a slew of fun games and tools in honour of the occasion, including a video, a delightfully nostalgic Street View tour of the garage where Google was born in 1998, and a search tool looking back over 20 years of popular search trends, created by Artist in Residence Cyril Diagne.

And since we love fun and informative trivia, we’ve rounded up some of the most surprising facts we learned from 20 years of search trends, courtesy of Diagne and Google’s ’20 years of Google search’ tool.

1. The internet loves dogs more than cats

Almost anyone who has ever been on YouTube (or Reddit, or Buzzfeed, or I Can Haz Cheezburger) will agree: the internet loves cats. The internet was made for cats. Cat gifs, cat videos, cat memes, animated cats – the internet’s favourite animal is obvious. Right?”.

10 surprising search trends from Google’s 20 years of data

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