These searches made Google the most money in one week

Documents made public as part of the US government’s antitrust trial against Google have shed some light on the types of search queries from which the company makes the most money.

Google’s search engine is one of its most powerful tools for driving online advertising revenue.

With a dominant share of the search engine market, advertisers often have to outbid each other to have their ads appear at the top of the Google Search page when users enter certain queries.

Generally, the higher up a result is shown, the more likely a user is to click on it and spend money with that advertiser.

Google previously said it only monetises about 20% of searches conducted through its search engine.

The Internet giant nonetheless records about 8.5 billion searches a day, which means that roughly 1.7 billion would feature paid-for advertising spots.

In 2022, Google made $162.45 billion (R3 trillion) off Search ads, accounting for 58.1% of its total revenue.

However, as The Verge pointed out, the company is generally coy about which specific search results generate the most of its revenue.

The US vs Google antitrust case has forced it to reveal at least a smidge of this long-hidden detail following lengthy deliberations with Judge Amit Mehta, who encouraged the search giant and the government to be more open about their data.

Among the files Google eventually made public was a list of the top 20 queries that made it the most revenue during just one week in 2018.

The top 20 searches ordered by revenue for the week of 22 September 2018 were as follows:

1. iphone 8
2. iphone 8 plus
3. auto insurance
4. car insurance
5. cheap flights
6. car insurance quotes
7. direct tv
8. online colleges
9. at&t
10. hulu
11. iPhone
12. uber
13. spectrum
14. Comcast
15. Xfinity
16. insurance quotes
17. free credit report
18. cheap car insurance
19. aarp
20. lifelock

While it makes sense that the iPhone 8 featured at the top during its launch week, it is a bit ironic that a product made by one of Google’s biggest rivals helped generate most of its Search revenue during that week.

Other significant sources of advertising revenue on Search during the week shared by Google were car insurance companies and flight ticket sellers.

It is currently unclear how much revenue Google made from the bidding on each query.

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