It's ironic that the No. 1 nation on the list accepted Bitcoin as a legal tender, while in the second Bitcoin is not accepted by the government and actually is banned in bank transactions. This goes to show that the while government acceptance helps to make citizens more receptive of Bitcoin, the citizens can choose to adopt it regardless.
Not really that ironic. Whether you accept Bitcoin or ban Bitcoin, it means people would want to know about Bitcoin. To anybody who hasn't heard of Bitcoin yet or to one who has heard but hasn't really known it, a ban or an acceptance as a legal tender would somehow pique his/her curiosity about Bitcoin. That would lead him/her to search for it online. This is why a criticism, a tirade, a ban, even a condemnation of Bitcoin is still a promotion of Bitcoin so to speak.
But trying to know and understand Bitcoin is not adoption, although there is a probability that learning about Bitcoin leads to embracing it.
I do not know much about the other countries on the list, I have read that Switzerland is friendly to Bitcoin. And in Canada, there was an incident recently where the gov't was freezing accounts, could that play a part in the search boasts?
It must have contributed to it. The City of Lugano in Switzerland has hit the headlines recently for accepting Bitcoin as a legal currency. In Canada, on the other hand, Bitcoin came into the fore during the truckers' protest because the banks suddenly froze bank accounts connected to the protesters. Bitcoin became an alternative for donations. In both stories, Bitcoin must have made a lot curious and led them to search for it on Google.