Google Search trends elections page shows top searched Presidentiables, VP

In light of the upcoming national elections, Google launched the Google Trends Philippine Elections page on Wednesday, March 9. The said page will serve as a tool indicating the top queries, topics, and most-search candidates running for president and vice president.

It also includes top political issues searches such as agriculture, economy, education, tourism, and the likes. Google updates the charts on a weekly basis. While all charts are embeddable from the Google Trends page, they will still update accordingly even after they are placed on certain media pages.

As of writing, Leni Robredo is leading as the top searched presidential candidate at 44%, while Sara Duterte leads the top searched vice-presidential at 45% of total search queries for the past week.

Google clarifies that the Google Trends Philippine Elections page is not a poll nor a survey. It does not assert voting intentions, and that the page merely reflects people’s interests on timely-relevant topics about the national elections. They noted that a spike in a particular search query does not necessarily reflect that a candidate is somehow “popular” nor “winning.”

Google also has been engaging in media literacy programs and fact-checking initiatives. Recently, they added Election Information Panels on YouTube app that aimed to promote credible content. The move also includes the removal of over 400,000 videos from February 2021 to January whose content violated their elections misinformation policies.