“Analysis of the most popular search queries of 2024 and brief conclusions for business”, — write: epravda.com.ua
At the end of the year, Google has traditionally compiled a ranking of the most popular searches. According to their data, in 2024 we were most concerned about “blackout schedules”, “Euro 2024” and the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces Oleksandr Syrskyi. The Google team does not reveal the full methodology of how the ranking was formed, but something immediately catches the eye – our search queries reflect the complex reality of today. And from year to year more and more Ukrainians are in the top. The dynamics of the growing popularity of the language online is recorded by many other studies. For example, the Content Analysis Center says that 87% of posts on Instagram are already in Ukrainian, and 79% on Facebook. This year, however, TikTok saw a regression. From 55% in 2023 to 47% in 2024. It is interesting that in everyday life many people notice an increase in the use of Russian during the year, online — the picture is different. Advertising: Bolt told that in Kyiv both users and drivers choose Ukrainian almost equally and Russian as the language of the application, Ukrainian slightly prevails. In Steam (this is an online service for the distribution of video games), the share of users who set the interface in Ukrainian has grown – from 0.17% in 2020 to 0.75% in 2024. By the way, the service team shared that foreign media and bloggers advise playing STALKER 2 precisely with Ukrainian dubbing. We have been monitoring language dynamics online for the second year in a row. In 2023, we saw that the share of requests in Ukrainian almost reached the 30% mark, and this year it finally crossed it. Advertising: For the analysis, we relied on a very large array of data, this year it is 341,000 requests in 8 niches. For the most part, attention was paid to commercial requests, because they are the most valuable from the point of view of business. The main conclusion is that in all online niches, Ukrainian shows growth dynamics. The total number of searches is growing, and most of them are in Ukrainian. The number of users who choose the Ukrainian-language version of the site is increasing. Average growth across all categories +5% percentage points. Read also: Advertising campaigns that work: the experience of a network of stomatology Why does the share of Ukrainian-language inquiries still make up only 30%, and not more? The question is rhetorical. On the one hand, brands record a large flow of traffic for Russian-language requests, so they do not delete the corresponding version of the site. On the other hand, users claim that they often cannot find relevant information in their native language. Everyone still scolds Google, because even setting English as the main language of the search engine does not save from Russian-language content. In fact, Google adapts search results based on the language and intent of the search query and the user’s geolocation. Since the number of users who use Russian-language queries is still more than half, the search engine will try to give them only Russian-language content and versions of web resources. In any case, let’s not forget that a few years ago we were part of “Runet”, and requests in Ukrainian were considered an exception and fluctuated at the level of a few percent. Few businesses invested in the promotion of Ukrainian-language pages, and not all of them had them on their sites. Today the picture is different. For example, more than 50% of information requests for news resources are already in Ukrainian. In the “Electronics” niche, they grew by a third over the year and now occupy 20% of the total share. For comparison, in 2021 this figure was slightly more than 8%. We can also see a noticeable positive trend in the “Children’s products” niche, where requests in Ukrainian have already crossed the 50% mark. Instead of the Russian-language “toy”, Ukrainians began to Google the word “toys” more often. Over the year, the growth was 49%. Pet products are Googled in Ukrainian in 41% of cases. The share of searches in this field increased by 13% compared to 2023. Retailer teams are also talking about the increase in traffic to the Ukrainian-language versions of the site: Already more than 60% of Ukrainians prefer the Ukrainian version on bilingual eCommerce sites. Well, at least this is the number of one well-known marketplace. This year, the MasterZoo website gained 30% more users than the Ukrainian-language version. ANC sees a 67% increase in impressions of Ukrainian-language pages in search results. In November 2024, the MAUDAU team had more organic clicks on the Ukrainian version of the site than on the Russian one. And on the ALLO website in October 2024, the share of organic traffic of the Ukrainian-language version amounted to more than 54%. The increase in the share of Ukrainian-language demand made it necessary to study and research user demand in more detail. In addition, it is also worth focusing attention on the promotion of Ukrainian-language pages (which indicates the need for additional costs for content and link building). Based on the research, the share of Ukrainian-language inquiries will continue to grow. Therefore, sites that have already started promoting the Ukrainian-language version will have an influential advantage in search positions, when the share of UA queries will be more than 50%.