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Microsoft Bing’s U.S. year-end report, released in December 2015, highlighted Caitlyn Jenner as its most-searched celebrity, the Paris attacks and threat of ISIS as its top news story, and “Discoveries on Pluto and Mars” as its No. 10 news category. Those findings came from separate lists and trend measures—not one overall top-three ranking.
What Bing’s 2015 report measured
Bing said its year-end review drew on billions of searches made during 2015. Microsoft presented category-based rankings for celebrities, athletes and news stories, alongside selected “celebrity moments” and rising names. The results describe activity on Bing in the United States; they are not a poll of public opinion or a universal ranking across search engines. Microsoft’s release was dated December 2, 2015, and published by PR Newswire on December 3.
| Finding | What it means |
|---|---|
| Caitlyn Jenner | No. 1 on Bing’s U.S. most-searched celebrity list |
| Paris attacks and the threat of ISIS | No. 1 in Bing’s U.S. top-news ranking |
| Discoveries on Pluto and Mars | No. 10 in that news ranking |
| Pluto search growth | Bing reported a 160% increase from June to July 2015 |
| Mars search growth | Bing reported a fivefold increase from August to September 2015 |
The ranking positions and the percentage increases measure different things. A month-to-month increase does not establish a subject’s overall rank, and the No. 10 Pluto-and-Mars category does not mean Pluto was the tenth-most-searched query on Bing.
Caitlyn Jenner led the celebrity list
Bing placed Caitlyn Jenner first after a year that included her public emergence, a high-profile interview on ABC’s 20/20, a Vanity Fair cover and her Arthur Ashe Courage Award acceptance speech at the ESPYs. Microsoft’s original release used the then-common transitional wording “Caitlyn (Bruce) Jenner”; this article uses Caitlyn Jenner.
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| Rank | Celebrity |
|---|---|
| 1 | Caitlyn Jenner |
| 2 | Miley Cyrus |
| 3 | Taylor Swift |
| 4 | Kim Richards |
| 5 | Kim Kardashian |
| 6 | Bindi Irwin |
| 7 | Chris Brown |
| 8 | Kylie Jenner |
| 9 | Justin Bieber |
| 10 | Kelly Clarkson |
Kim Kardashian, Bing’s 2014 celebrity leader, was fifth in the 2015 U.S. list. These are celebrity rankings, not a claim that Jenner was the most-searched person worldwide.
“Paris” meant two terrorist attacks and the ISIS threat
Bing’s No. 1 news category was “Paris attacks and the threat of ISIS,” not tourism, fashion or general interest in the city. The category covered the January 7 attack and the November 13 attacks, events involving mass casualties and terrorism. Their prominence in a search report reflects intense public attention during a year of tragedy and should not be treated as an entertainment-style “moment.” GeekWire’s contemporary summary identifies both Paris attacks in its account of Bing’s list.
| Rank | Bing news category |
|---|---|
| 1 | Paris attacks and the threat of ISIS |
| 2 | European Union refugee crisis |
| 3 | Nepal earthquake |
| 4 | Snowstorm burying the Northeast U.S. |
| 5 | Germanwings Flight 9525 crash |
| 6 | Wildfires and drought |
| 7 | U.S.–Cuba relations restored |
| 8 | Planned Parenthood facing potential defunding |
| 9 | Ashley Madison hack and data leak |
| 10 | Discoveries on Pluto and Mars |
Why Pluto and Mars appeared
New Horizons made Pluto a major science story
NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft completed the first close flyby of Pluto on July 14, 2015. Images and discoveries from the mission circulated widely. Bing reported that searches for Pluto rose 160% between June and July. That is Bing’s own month-to-month statistic, not an independently verified measure of all internet searches.
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Bing also said searches for “Mars” increased fivefold from August to September after announcements about findings concerning water on the planet. The figure applies to searches for the term “Mars”; it does not show that every additional search concerned liquid water or that the announcement was the only cause.
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Together, the Pluto and Mars items formed Bing’s tenth-ranked news category, “Discoveries on Pluto and Mars.”
The athlete list and Bing’s “year of women in sports” framing
Bing described 2015 as a particularly strong year for women in sports, noting that women represented twice as much of its athlete list as in 2014. The context included the U.S. women’s soccer team’s FIFA Women’s World Cup victory, Ronda Rousey’s prominence and fight with Holly Holm, and Serena Williams’s major tennis achievements.
Rank #4
| Rank | Athlete |
|---|---|
| 1 | Tom Brady |
| 2 | Ronda Rousey |
| 3 | Jordan Spieth |
| 4 | Stephen Curry |
| 5 | Aaron Rodgers |
| 6 | Serena Williams |
| 7 | Caroline Wozniacki |
| 8 | LeBron James |
| 9 | Danica Patrick |
| 10 | Cristiano Ronaldo |
How to read the rankings accurately
- They are Bing-specific: the figures cover Bing activity in the U.S., not every search engine or every country.
- They combine different measures: category rank, editorially selected moments and month-to-month growth are not interchangeable.
- Search interest is not importance: breaking-news confusion, publicity, controversy, curiosity and practical information can all drive searches.
- Geography matters: Canada’s separate Bing release produced different results, including Kim Kardashian as its top searched person. See the Canadian 2015 report rather than applying the U.S. list internationally.
Read that way, the headline is broadly accurate: Jenner topped one list, the Paris attacks topped another, and Pluto and Mars were prominent in Bing’s science-related news coverage. It does not mean those three subjects were Bing’s three highest individual searches overall.
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