Google now sees more than 5 trillion searches per year

Google processes more than 5 trillion searches per year. This is the first time Google has publicly shared such a figure since 2016, when the company confirmed it was handling “more than 2 trillion” queries annually.

By the numbers. Google revealed the new figure in a blog post today, saying it is based on internal Google data:

• “We already see more than 5 trillion searches on Google annually.”

Google added another tidbit in the same blog post: that “the volume of commercial queries has increased” since the launch of AI Overviews. However, Google didn’t share any data or a percentage to explain how much commercial queries have increased.

Searches per second, minute, day and month. Now that we have an updated figure, we can also estimate how many Google searches there are pretty much down to the second. Here’s a breakdown based on this new Google data point:

• Searches per second: 158,548
• Searches per minute: 9.5 million.
• Searches per hour: 571 million.
• Searches per day: 14 billion.
• Searches per month: 417 billion.
• Searches per year: More than 5 trillion.

Google searches per year, over time. Curious about how the number of Google search queries has grown over time, at least based on what Google self-reported? Here’s a brief recap:

• 1999: 1 billion. This figure was based on 3 million searches per day, reported in August 1999 by John Battelle in his book, “The Search.”
• 2000: 14 billion. This figure was based on 18 million searches per day for the first half of 2000 and 60 million for the second half, as reported by Battelle.
• 2001–2003: 55 billion+. This figure was based on reports by Google for its Zeitgeist in 2001, 2002 and 2003.
• 2004–2008: 73 billion. This figure was based on Google saying it was doing 200 million searches per day in 2004. After that, it said only “billions” in Google Zeitgeist for 2005 and 2007. No updates were shared in 2006 or 2008.
• 2009: 365 billion+. A Google blog post, Google Instant, behind the scenes, said Google was doing more than 1 billion searches per day. No updates for 2010 or 2011)
• 2012–2015: 1.2 trillion. This figure is based on a 100-billion-per-month figure Google released during a special press briefing on search in 2012. Google repeated this figure in 2015, when expressing it as 3 billion searches per day.
• 2016-2024: 2 trillion+. Google confirmed to Search Engine Land that because it said it handles “trillions” of searches per year worldwide, the figure could be safely assumed to be 2 trillion or above.
• 2025: 5 trillion+. This figure is based on internal Google data and was reported in Google’s blog post, AI, personalization and the future of shopping.

Why we care. Since 2016, we’ve known that Google processes “at least 2 trillion” searches per year. Now, nearly nine years later, we have a new official figure from Google for how many searches are conducted on Google annually: 5 trillion.