In our continuing series of examining Google Search Trends to gain insights into the top keywords queried in the USA, we present our findings for January 2021.
Every day, we capture the top three keyword phrases in terms of search volume as reported by Google Trends (US Only). Each term has an estimated query volume attached to it, which we also record. The number scale tops out at 10,000,000+ with a lower limit of 200,000+. After the conclusion of the month, we look at the phrases we collected along with their volumes to get an understanding of what drove queries for the month.
The First Month of 2021
Well, we're off to quite a start in 2021. There was a notion that with the flip of the calendar year the entire world would improve automatically. Now, we should all realize that years are a human construct and large changes to society don't happen overnight. With that stated, we saw many historical developments in the month of January and the phrases we collected from Google Trends reflected those changes. One of the biggest shifts was related to how we categorized the search terms. We had to create a category called “Stocks” because of actions that people wanted to know more about that occurred in the later half of the month.
Here's is the month that was by top Google Trends keywords, as analyzed by AMP Agency.
January's Top Queried Phrases
There were a good number of phrases that were queried more that 10 million times over the course of a day in January. Not all of them were driven by Google Doodles, most were driven by the need to know more about an event.
- Georgia Senate race – 1/4/2021 – 10,000,000+ queries
- Georgia election – 1/5/2021 – 10,000,000+ queries
- James Naismith – 1/14/2021 – 10,000,000+ queries
- Patrick Mahomes – 1/16/2021 – 10,000,000+ queries
- Martin Luther King Day – 1/17/2021 – 10,000,000+ queries
- Conor McGregor – 1/23/2021 – 10,000,000+ queries
- GameStop stock – 1/27/2021 – 10,000,000+ queries
The first two keywords in our list are related to the United States Senate special election that was held in Georgia on January 5th. These phrases were the most queried of all the politics-related keywords of the month, although there were a large group of them driven by political events that are examined in the next two sections. The two Google Doodle driven keywords were James Naismith, the inventor of the game of basketball, and Martin Luther King Day, which celebrated the national holiday and day of service that honors the life of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
There were two sports-related keywords with over 10 million queries: Patrick Mahomes suffered a concussion in a NFL playoff game and Conor McGregor got knocked out during his bout at UFC 257. The world of sports was a main driver of search interest in January and we'll explore the keywords that drove over 5 million queries in a section below. Lastly, actions in the US stock market drove more search volume in January 2021 than any other month since the beginning of 2019. The top query was GameStop stock on the 27th, but there were several others that piqued the interest of users trying to learn more and understand why certain stock prices were soaring.
The End Of One Presidency…
The Georgia special election keywords were the most popular and they were a precursor to the keywords queried related to political events that happened in the last days of Trump's Presidency. The following list presents the phrases of what people were searching before, during, and after the storming of the United States Capitol.
- Trump – 1/5/2021 – 5,000,000+ queries
- 25th Amendment – 1/6/2021 – 5,000,000+ queries
- Capitol – 1/6/2021 – 5,000,000+ queries
- News – 1/6/2021 – 5,000,000+ queries
- Brian Sicknick – 1/7/2021 – 500,000+ queries
- Parler – 1/8/2021 – 2,000,000+ queries
- Insurrection Act – 1/10/2021 – 1,000,000+ queries
- Trump impeachment – 1/11/2021 – 500,000+ queries
- 25th Amendment – 1/11/2021 – 500,000+ queries
- Impeachment – 1/12/2021 – 2,000,000+ queries
The one interesting note from a search keyword/Google Trends reporting standpoint is the phrase of “News” from the 6th of January. It's as if we didn't have any words to help guide our search.
…And The Beginning Of Another.
With the new administration getting sworn in, there was increased search volume around the new President and Vice President and the Inauguration.
- Garth Brooks – 1/18/2021 – 500,000+ queries
- Inauguration – 1/19/2021 – 5,000,000 + queries
- Amanda Gorman – 1/19/2021 – 2,000,000+ queries
- Joe Biden – 1/19/2021 – 2,000,000+ queries
- Kamala Harris – 1/20/2021 – 2,000,000+ queries
- Poet Laureate – 1/20/2021 – 1,000,000+ queries
- Lady Gaga – 1/20/2021 – 1,000,000+ queries
- Jill Biden – 1/21/2021 – 1,000,000+ queries
With all respect to Garth Brooks and Lady Gaga, the real big star coming out of the Inauguration was Amanda Gorman according to Google Trends.
Fanatical About Finances
As we stated in the beginning of this post, we had to create a new category for our keyword collections because of the number of keywords related to stocks. The highest queried phrase was “GameStop stock” on the 27th with over 10 million queries but here are the other stock-related keywords that made the daily top 3:
- GameStop – 1/21/2021 – 1,000,000+ queries
- GameStop stock – 1/25/2021 – 1,000,000+ queries
- GME – 1/25/2021 – 1,000,000+ queries
- GameStop stock price – 1/28/2021 – 1,000,000+ queries
- American Airlines stock – 1/28/2021 – 200,000+ queries
- Robinhood – 1/27/2021 – 5,000,000+ queries
- AMC Stock – 1/31/2021 – 5,000,000+ queries
Along with the GameStop inquiries, the other companies mentioned are American Airlines and AMC. Certainly Reddit and Robinhood have changed the game of individual stock trading.
Another financial topic that has been rising in search interest over the past few months is Cryptocurrency. Here are the top terms from January 2021:
- Bitcoin price – 1/2/2021 – 500,000+ queries
- Bitcoin – 1/11/2021 – 500,000+ queries
- Dogecoin – 1/27/2021 – 5,000,000+ queries
Bitcoin's price hit new highs twice in January along with Dogecoin, which is another cryptocurrency that was introduced in 2013, saw its price skyrocket as Reddit members and Elon Musk brought attention to it amid the GameStop short squeeze.
Lastly, many people were also interested in making a lot of money for low effort the old fashioned way – the Lottery:
- Mega Millions – 1/12/2021 – 2,000,000+ queries
- Powerball – 1/13/2021 – 1,000,000+ queries
- Mega Millions drawing – 1/15/2021 – 1,000,000+ queries
- Mega Millions – 1/22/2021 – 5,000,000+ queries
With prizes ranging from 100s of millions to 1 billion dollars, users were very interested in the results of these lotteries.
GridIron Football Dominates
When we looked past the 10 million plus queries that were sports-related, we found that the 5 million plus queries were all North American football-related (not to be confused with football that we call soccer. People search for that type of football a lot in the USA),
- Ohio State Football – 1/1/2021 – 5,000,000+ queries
- Steelers – 1/9/2021 – 5,000,000+ queries
- Drew Brees – 1/17/2021 – 5,000,000+ queries
- Green Bay Packers – 1/24/2021 – 5,000,000+ queries
- Chiefs – 1/24/2021 – 5,000,000+ queries
Ohio State won the College National Championship game this year as the Steelers took an early exit in the playoffs. Drew Brees called it a career and the Green Bay Packers lost to Tom Brady's Buccaneers. Lastly, the Kansas City Chief made their way to the SuperBowl for the second year in a row.
Next month, we'll showcase how the major sports leagues fared in the times of COVID-19. We'll have a 12 month sample set by the time we're writing up the February 2021 post.
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Until next month.
