'Meghan Markle' most googled person in UK in 2018

By Jen CopestakeTechnology reporter

"Meghan Markle" was the most searched-for person's name for the second year running on Google's UK search service.

But the Duchess of Sussex came second to the overall winner of the most queried term - "World Cup" - in the company's search trends review for 2018.

"Royal wedding" and "royal baby" were the top two news event trends.

The duchess announced her first pregnancy in October while on tour with Prince Harry in Australia.

Of course, there were two royal weddings this year: Prince Harry and Meghan Markle in May; and Princess Eugenie and Jack Brooksbank in October, which may have added to the overall figures.

"Roxanne Pallett" the former Emmerdale actor who courted controversy on Celebrity Big Brother after accusing housemate Ryan Thomas of punching her, came second in most-searched-for celebrities.

Pallett ended up quitting her radio show on York-based Minster FM over the fallout from the incident, calling herself "the most hated girl in Britain".

Celebrities who struggled with substance abuse took the third and fourth spots: "Demi Lovato", who had an apparent overdose, and "Ant McPartlin", who had well-documented struggles with rehab and recovery.

McPartlin took time off from his TV presenting roles including ITV's I'm a Celebrity - which was the top trending TV Show - after crashing his car while under the influence of alcohol.

Despite being the most watched television drama last year, "Bodyguard" was pipped to the post by "Killing Eve" - numbers three and two respectively in the television category.

Marvel's superhero film Black Panther was the fourth top trending overall query as well as being the most searched for movie title.

It was the studio's first film to focus on Africa and feature a predominantly black cast.

Black Panther was also one of the highest grossing movies of the year, taking more than $1bn (£800m) worldwide.

Among the more prosaic searches in the "How To...?" list were "How to bleed radiators?" at number eight and "How to put lights on a Christmas tree?" at number nine.

Perhaps reflecting wider privacy concerns on social media, "How to delete Instagram?" and "How to delete Facebook?" were fifth and sixth on the list.

Jeremy Clarkson's return to prime-time TV with a classic moment on "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?" made it into the most searched trends.

The show introduced an "Ask the Host" lifeline to its Phone a Friend, 50/50 and Ask The Audience options.

Clarkson gave a confident answer to "What is an Ibex?" leading to a flurry of searches for the wild goat.

Unfortunately he said it was a deer and lost his contestant £15,000.

Finishing ahead of this gaffe "What is Bitcoin?" topped the list of quizzical searches.

Considering the wild price fluctuations and opaque nature of how the crypto-currency works, it does not come as a surprise.

Heads were also scratched over "What is GDPR" the new European Union legislation on data protection which made second spot on the What is? list.

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