Former prime minister Najib Abdul Razak is Malaysia's most searched name on Google this year, according to the company's Year in Search 2018 report.

This is the first time Najib made it on Google's Top 10 "trending people of 2018" since 2015 - the year when he was accused of receiving RM2.6 billion into his personal bank accounts.

In total, seven politicians or politically-involved persons on the list. The other six, in sequential order, are Dr Mahahir Mohamad, Syed Saddiq Abdul Rahman, Rosmah Mansor, Anwar Ibrahim, Mohamad Sabu and Nurul Izzah Anwar.

There were no politicians on the list in 2016 and 2017.

The search term "Najib" and "Mahathir" also appeared on the eight and tenth spots respectively on Google's "trending searches of 2018" by Malaysians.

The top three spots went to "World Cup", followed by "SPR" (Election Commission)" and "Astro Awani".

In the "trending news topics in 2018" category, the most searched term was "PRU 14" followed by "Momo Challenge" and "Icerd".

Google's Year in Search 2018 report was produced by Google Trends, which tracked search terms on Google Malaysia this year.

 "Google reveals the Internet’s spirit of the times through an exploration of the over one trillion search queries we receive each year.

"In addition to year-end searches, which highlights the top trends of 2018, we also have several tools that give insight into global, regional, past and present search trends," said the company in a statement today.