Google releases 2021 Year in Search; These were the top-trending ‘Near Me’ searches in Pittsburgh

PITTSBURGH — In what has been a tradition that’s spanned 21 years in the making, Google Inc. released its annual Year in Search campaign on Wednesday, which the tech giant said tells a story about a world looking to rebuild in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic and other historic events.

As part of that release, Google, the largest subsidiary of holding company Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOGL), also unveiled its top-trending “near me” searches for hundreds of locations across the globe, including those for Pittsburgh and throughout Pennsylvania. The company said these searches are not to be interpreted as a location’s “top searches” or “most searched” terms, but instead reflect those that had a high spike in traffic over a sustained period of time in 2021 compared to 2020.

For Pittsburgh and the commonwealth at large, searches relating to the pandemic continued to dominate the queries of many throughout the year, with the most frequent among them being related to trying to find a local Covid-19 vaccine provider or local Covid-19 testing resources. But a desire for the return to prepandemic life also seemed to be on the minds of many throughout the year as Googlers sought to find places to eat, drink and socialize throughout the Pittsburgh metro and in Pennsylvania more broadly in 2021.

These were the top-trending “near me” searches in Pittsburgh for 2021:

1. Covid vaccine near me
2. Covid testing near me
3. Coffee near me
4. Urgent care near me
5. Gas stations near me

For the full list, read more in the Pittsburgh Business Times.

From ‘omicron’ to ‘Eilish,’ see 2021’s most commonly mispronounced words (NCD)