Argentina’s forward #10 Lionel Messi kicks the ball during the Qatar 2022 World Cup final football match between Argentina and France at Lusail Stadium in Lusail, north of Doha on December 18, 2022.
Kirill Kudryavtsev | Afp | Getty Images
Alphabet-owned Google broke a search record thanks to the World Cup international soccer tournament.
During the knockout World Cup round Tuesday, Argentina’s national team mounted a late comeback where Cristian Romero scored a goal then Lionel Messi equalized with his own goal in the 83rd minute for the win.
“Google Search broke all prior usage records and saw its highest usage in history right after Argentina scored their winning goal in yesterday’s match” wrote Nick Fox, head of Google’s Knowledge and Information unit Wednesday.
A company spokesperson did not share specific numbers but told CNBC “we saw the most queries per second happen right after the winning goal.”
The milestone comes as the company tries to prove its traditional search engine can keep its relevance in the age of AI, where chatbots have become more prevalent. Google still controls 90% of the search market, its stock price has more than doubled in the past year and revenue growth in the first quarter was the fastest for any period since 2022.
Google said its top searched query after the game was “argentina vs egypt.”
Globally, the company also saw people searching for things like “argentina x colombia” and “how many world cup goals does messi have.” Additional queries included “what is it called when a player hits another player in game” and “is it messi’s last world cup.”
