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 2023.
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+ (sometimes 100,000+). 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 Start of a New Year
2023 began with many of the same topics being searched as we had in 2022. If you don’t know already, the NFL is very popular. It was the most queried subject of the month, and more so this January because of a medical emergency of one of the players. We had a few weather events and tech company layoffs last month. We still can tell what the most popular TV shows and movies are by the volume of search queries. Lastly and sadly, police violence is still a reality and driving search queries. Here’s our analysis of the top trending keywords from January 2023.
Two Holidays
There were 4 keyword phrases that made the 10 million plus club last month. Two of them were related to holidays:
- Dr. Martin Luther King Jr Day – 1/15/2023 – 10,000,000+ queries
- Lunar New Year – 1/21/2023 – 10,000,000+ queries
Both of these holidays were celebrated with Google Doodles. Here’s the updated logo for MLK day 2023:
The other two queries were related to the NFL and will be examined later in this post.
Tyre Nichols
On January 26th, the Grand Jury of the State of Tennessee indicted the five Memphis Police officers who are accused of charges related to the beating and death of Tyre Nichols.
- Tyre Nichols – 1/26/2023 – 2,000,000+ queries
- Memphis police – 1/26/2023 – 500,000+ queries
- Tyre Nichols body cam – 1/26/2023 – 200,000+ queries
- Tyre Nichols – 1/27/2023 – 5,000,000+ queries
The video footage from the traffic stop drew a lot of interest from people searching on Google. Queries for this topic spanned across two days last month.
Films and Shows
The data tells us the most interesting movies and TV shows of January 2023 are as follows:
- M3GAN – 1/5/2023 – 200,000+ queries
- The Pale Blue Eye – 1/6/2023 – 200,000+ queries
- The Last of Us HBO – 1/15/2023 – 1,000,000+ queries
- That ’90s Show – 1/19/2023 – 500,000+ queries
The film M3GAN had its wide theatrical release and The Pale Blue Eye was made available for streaming on Netflix on the 6th. The HBOMax show The Last of US had its debut on the 15th and That ’90s Show premiered on the 19th.
Movie Awards
After a hiatus, the Golden Globes were back this year and people were interested enough to query Google to learn more.
- Golden Globes 2023 – 1/10/2023 – 2,000,000+ queries
- Everything Everywhere All at Once – 1/10/2023 – 500,000+ queries
A few of the actors (Michelle Yeoh, Ke Huy Quan) in the film Everything Everywhere All at Once won awards at the ceremony. Movie award season continued with the announcement of the Oscar nominations on the 23rd.
- Oscar Nominations 2023 – 1/23/2023 – 2,000,000+ queries
Check back for our March 2023 report where we will analyze the queries related to that award show. Hopefully, it won’t involve any slapping.
Tech Layoffs
As we saw towards the end of last year, big tech companies had layoffs in January 2023, which led to search queries of company names.
- Salesforce – 1/4/2023 – 200,000+ queries
- Spotify – 1/9/2023 – 500,000+ queries
We hope there won’t be more topics related to layoffs in the coming year.
Weather
Near the beginning of the month, wild weather drove people to query these keywords to learn more.
- Bomb cyclone – 1/3/2023 – 200,000+ queries
- California storm – 1/4/2023 – 200,000+ queries
In other natural occurrence news, the appearance of a comet also piqued the interest of Google Searchers.
- Green Comet – 1/31/2023 – 500,000+ queries
We hope you were able to see it. Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF) isn’t due back for thousands of years.
The Most Popular Sport in the USA
Far and away, the US search audience queries about the National Football League more than any other professional sports organization. Last month, 30 of the 93 phrases we collected were related to the NFL. In this section, we present only the keywords that were queried over 1 million times in a day – starting with the ones that were queried over 10 million times.
- Damar Hamlin – 1/2/2023 – 10,000,000+ queries
- Bengals vs Chiefs – 1/28/2023 – 10,000,000+ queries
Damar Hamlin’s on-field medical emergency was a topic that went beyond sports and drove a large number of queries. The keyword phrase related to the AFC championship game was the other topic that drove the highest reported query volume from Google Trends. We guess people were not as interested in the NFC championship game. Here’s the rest of the NFL-related keywords:
- NFL – 1/7/2023 – 5,000,000+ queries
- Chiefs – 1/7/2023 – 1,000,000+ queries
- Jacksonville Jaguars – 1/7/2023 – 1,000,000+ queries
- Seahawks – 1/8/2023 – 1,000,000+ queries
- 49ers – 1/13/2023 – 2,000,000+ queries
- Chargers – 1/14/2023 – 5,000,000+ queries
- Giants – 1/15/2023 – 2,000,000+ queries
- Kansas City Chiefs – 1/20/2023 – 2,000,000+ queries
- Giants vs Eagles – 1/20/2023 – 1,000,000+ queries
- Cowboys – 1/21/2023 – 5,000,000+ queries
- Cowboys vs 49ers – 1/21/2023 – 2,000,000+ queries
- 49ers vs Eagles – 1/27/2023 – 1,000,000+ queries
- Chiefs vs Bengals – 1/28/2023 – 2,000,000+ queries
- 49ers vs Eagles – 1/28/2023 – 2,000,000+ queries
Next month, we will have the recap on the Superbowl queries. We wonder if people will be interested in when the game starts.
It’s Not The World Cup
The other football known as soccer here in the States is still popular. Check out these 5 queries related to matches held in January 2023.
- Chelsea vs Man City – 1/5/2023 – 500,000+ queries
- Man United vs Man City – 1/13/2023 – 500,000+ queries
- Real Madrid vs Barcelona – 1/14/2023 – 1,000,000+ queries
- PSG vs Al Nassr – 1/18/2023 – 2,000,000+ queries
- Man City vs Tottenham – 1/19/2023 – 500,000+ queries
It’s not at the level of the World Cup but still enough volume to make the daily top 3.
NBA
We saw a good number of queries related to the NBA.
- Donovan Mitchell – 1/2/2023 – 500,000+ queries
- Lakers – 1/12/2023 – 500,000+ queries
- Celtics – 1/12/2023 – 100,000+ queries
- Celtics – 1/24/2023 – 100,000+ queries
- Knicks – 1/24/2023 – 100,000+ queries
- Lakers – 1/25/2023 – 200,000+ queries
- Warriors – 1/25/2023 – 200,000+ queries
Donovan Mitchell scored 71 points on the 2nd. The other queries were related to teams playing on that day. Did your favorite team make the list?
Wrestling
Some may argue the validity of the sport, but Professional Wrestling made the daily top 3 twice last month.
- Jay Briscoe – 1/17/2023 – 500,000+ queries
- Royal Rumble 2023 – 1/27/2023 – 500,000+ queries
Jay Briscoe was a Ring of Honor wrestler who passed away on the 17th. The other keyword phrase was related to their annual Royal Rumble event. Although the number of phrases related to Wrestling are small, they do pick up when there are big events or news stories related to this form of entertainment.
Looking Towards February
The last phrase on our list was a forward-looking keyword.
- Black History Month – 1/30/2023 – 200,000+ queries
As we look back at the first month of the year, it’s good to know that there is more to come in the near future.
Thanks for reading. If you liked this article, we utilize search trends data for all of our clients and we invite you to learn more about our SEO services.
