Wordle has quickly become one of the most popular games in the world, with fans completing its daily puzzles and comparing scores. Wordle's sudden rise in popularity has seen it acquired by The New York Times and inspire near-endless copycats. It's also had a direct impact on Google, with the phrase "five letter words" rising on Google Trends as of late.
This was pointed out by Reddit user agolio, showing a graph of how the phrase "five letter words" has been searched for with increasing frequency as Wordle's popularity has taken off. It seems that many Wordle players are looking for help when completing the daily puzzle, but may just want hints instead of looking up the exact answer. So they may be searching for five letter Wordle words that start with a certain letter, or they may be looking up five letter words that have specific letters in them.
Many Wordle players would likely consider this a form of cheating, but some players may be more concerned about keeping their streaks alive than if they're playing by the rules. For example, there were players who were annoyed with the Wordle answer for February 16, CAULK, with some not even thinking that it was a real word. As a result, some frustrated players started looking up "five letter words with AUL" to help them figure out the answer.
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Some Wordle players have been looking up the words that give them the best chance of solving any given puzzle. There are disagreements as to which word is the best, with some suggesting that TRACE is the best Wordle starting word, while others have pointed to words like LATER, ADIEU, and IRATE. Some Wordle players like to figure out the vowels first and go from there, whereas others like to focus on the most commonly-used letters in the alphabet instead.
There have been some controversies when it comes to the words used in Wordle. The New York Times removed offensive words from Wordle after the acquisition, limiting the daily puzzle's possible answers as well as what players are allowed to guess. Discrepancies between American and British English has also caused some problems, with many Wordle fans annoyed when HUMOR was the answer for one of the puzzles (those in the UK spell it "HUMOUR" instead).
Wordle's popularity means it will be here to stay, and it should keep having an impact on Google Trends.
Wordle is available to play now.