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 March 2022.
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.
Will Smith Broke Google Trends
Well, let’s not bury the lead. The biggest story from our collected data stems from The Slap Heard ‘Round The World. There was a huge spike in search volume related to the slapper, Will Smith on the night of the Oscars.. Because of the large number of searches, it made the reporting of Google Trends’ daily trends a little funky. We’ll examine those queries in their own section below, but the rest of the month did have some other interesting search topics.
There were other topics related to the world of entertainment outside of the Oscars. We’ll examine what movies and TV shows people were hoping to see. March Madness took up a lot of real estate in Google Trends’ report so we’ll take you through those queries, and we think we know why weather-related keywords are getting more queries lately. Without further ado, here are our insights into Google Trends for March 2022.
The Other Top Quered Phrases For March 2022
Beyond Will Smith, there were two other topics that drove over 10 million queries in a day. Those topics were attached to Google Doodles, which become queries when someone simply clicks on the altered Google logo.
- Winter Paralympics - 3/3/2022 - 10,000,000+ queries
- Rosa Bonheur - 3/15/2022 - 10,000,000+ queries
The Winter Paralympics were held between March 4th and 13th and interest in the games was supported by Google Doodle. The French painter Rosa Bonheur was celebrated on what would have been her 200th birthday.
Holiday Searching - March 2022 Style
This year, March was full of holidays. Let’s take a look at the list.
- Ash Wednesday - 3/1/2022 - 1,000,000+ queries
- Mardi Gras 2022 - 3/1/2022 - 1,000,000+ queries
- International Womens Day - 3/7/2022 - 2,000,000+ queries
- Pi - 3/14/2022 - 1,000,000+ queries
- St. Patrick's Day 2022 - 3/16/2022 - 1,000,000+ queries
- April Fools pranks - 3/31/2022 - 1,000,000+ queries
The start of Lent kicked off March and people interested in both Mardi Gras and Ash Wednesday took to Google to learn more about those holidays. One of the members of our AMP SEO team went to New Orleans to see the celebrations first hand and lived to tell the tale!
The highest queried holiday in this list was International Women’s Day, which occurs every March 8th. This holiday has picked up in search interest over the last 5 years.
It looks like there was a lull in 2020 (gee, I wonder what else was happening around March 8th that year?) but has rebounded nicely to where the interest was in 2018.
An unofficial holiday that is celebrated on March 14th is Pi Day. Since Pi the mathematical constant of the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter is 3.14 (rounded up), it corresponds with the month number and day of March 14th. Let’s see the five year trends of Pi Day.
The search interest peak for this holiday happened in 2018. During the pandemic, the interest took a big blow but it appears to be back on the rise. Holidays present a big opportunity for marketers. How can you use these upward trending holidays in your plans for 2023?
Since these two queries were aligned with the passage of time, we’re discussing here in the Holiday section. Google searchers also wanted to know more about Daylight Savings time for two different reasons.
- Daylight savings 2022 - 3/11/2022 - 2,000,000+ queries
- Daylight savings time - 3/15/2022 - 2,000,000+ queries
The first reason was to figure out when to change the clocks. The second reason was to find out more about Congress trying to keep Daylight Savings in place for good. We’d like the time to stay in one place but it probably should be Standard time (sorry).
Entertainment That Wasn’t The Oscars Ceremony
Here is the list of all the TV shows, films, and trailers that were released in March 2022 that made the Google Trends daily top 3:
- The Dropout - 3/3/2022 - 500,000+ queries
- Pieces of Her - 3/4/2022 - 200,000+ queries
- ACM Awards 2022 - 3/6/2022 - 500,000+ queries
- Turning Red - 3/11/2022 - 1,000,000+ queries
- Deep Water - 3/18/2022 - 500,000+ queries
- Where the Crawdads Sing - 3/22/2022 - 200,000+ queries
- Bridgerton - 3/25/2022 - 1,000,000+ queries
- Moon Knight - 3/29/2022 - 1,000,000+ queries
- Morbius - 3/31/2022 - 1,000,000+ queries
The Dropout, Pieces of Her, Bridgerton, and Moon Knight are all shows that you can stream and the spike in search interest corresponds with their release date. Turning Red, Deep Water, and Morbius are all films that were released last month. Where the Crawdads Sing is a film that is adapted from a novel and its trailer dropped on the 22nd. It will be shown exclusively in theaters in July. Lastly, the American Country Music awards were held on the 7th and, for the first time, were not on network television. The show was streamed on Amazon to mixed reviews. Queries related to this award show were probably related to understanding where one could watch them.
The Effect Of Extremely High Query Volume
There are some events that occur that drive people to search. The last one we saw was the November 2020 Presidential Election. Looking back at those insights, the queries were stretched out over many days. The immediate reaction of Will Smith slap on The Oscars caused a big spike in queries during a short amount of time. Here’s our recording of the queries:
- Will Smith - 3/27/2022 - 10,000,000+ queries
- Will Smith Oscars - 3/27/2022 - 10,000,000+ queries
- Will Smith - 3/27/2022 - 10,000,000+ queries
Here’s a screenshot from Google Trends’ Daily Search Trends page:
It’s not often you see the same query in the first and third position. The volume of searches were too much for the reporting module to take.
We noted in the February report that the Oscars had a down year in 2021 in terms of search interest and we would be monitoring the trend in March. Any guesses if the trend is up or down this year? Here’s the chart:
This chart is of the Academy Awards topic over the last five years. It’s hard to decipher if the search interest would have been as high as it's shown here without the slap but it’s clear that it is much higher than it’s been since 2018.
News Queries
As the Russian Invasion of Ukraine continues, so do queries related to it persist in Google Trends.
- Ukraine nuclear power plant - 3/2/2022 - 200,000+ queries
- Ukraine nuclear power plant - 3/3/2022 - 500,000+ queries
- Oil Prices - 3/7/2022 - 100,000+ queries
Unlike February 2022, there were only these three queries that made Google’s daily top 3.
March Madness Throughout The Month
The most persistent topic during March 2022 was the NCAA basketball tournament. Take a look at how people searched for their teams, the matchups, and the tourney itself over the month.
- Duke basketball - 3/5/2022 - 1,000,000+ queries
- Michigan basketball - 3/9/2022 - 500,000+ queries
- NCAA bracket - 3/13/2022 - 2,000,000+ queries
- NCAA Tournament - 3/16/2022 - 1,000,000+ queries
- March Madness - 3/17/2022 - 2,000,000+ queries
- NCAA Tournament - 3/17/2022 - 1,000,000+ queries
- Baylor basketball - 3/19/2022 - 1,000,000+ queries
- Gonzaga - 3/19/2022 - 1,000,000+ queries
- Michigan basketball - 3/19/2022 - 500,000+ queries
- Duke basketball - 3/20/2022 - 500,000+ queries
- Duke Basketball - 3/24/2022 - 1,000,000+ queries
- Texas Tech basketball - 3/24/2022 - 500,000+ queries
- NCAA basketball - 3/25/2022 - 2,000,000+ queries
- Duke Basketball - 3/26/2022 - 2,000,000+ queries
- Kansas basketball - 3/26/2022 - 500,000+ queries
- Duke vs Arkansas - 3/26/2022 - 200,000+ queries
- UConn women's basketball - 3/28/2022 - 200,000+ queries
Clearly, there are a few Duke fans out there.
Players Making Moves In The NFL
The most popular sport in the USA from a search perspective is the NFL. The league doesn’t stay out of the Daily Trends of Google Trends for long - even in the off-season.
- Russell Wilson - 3/8/2022 - 5,000,000+ queries
- Carson Wentz - 3/9/2022 - 500,000+ queries
- Tom Brady - 3/13/2022 - 5,000,000+ queries
- Von Miller - 3/16/2022 - 500,000+ queries
- Davante Adams - 3/17/2022 - 1,000,000+ queries
- Deshaun Watson - 3/18/2022 - 2,000,000+ queries
- Matt Ryan - 3/21/2022 - 1,000,000+ queries
- Tyreek Hill - 3/23/2022 - 2,000,000+ queries
All of these players made changes of employment. Most of them are going to play for another team next year, except for Tom Brady who just can’t stay retired.
Weather Queries Aren’t Getting More Popular But
…they are becoming easier to plug into Google’s search bar. As a part of a user’s Google Discover feed, there is a clickable button that leads to Google search results that are tied to weather queries! Because of this new feature, millions of queries related to extreme weather are now appearing in Google Trends.
- Winter Storm Warning - 3/11/2022 - 1,000,000+ queries
- Severe Thunderstorm warning - 3/29/2022 - 1,000,000+ queries
Mystery solved! We didn’t think that people were suddenly really, really interested in the weather but one never knows.
Tech Woes, Tech Shows
Finally, the two top Tech queries from March 2022 happened on the same day.
- Spotify - 3/8/2022 - 2,000,000+ queries
- Apple - 3/8/2022 - 500,000+ queries
Spotify had a major outage on the 8th as Apple had an event announcing their newest devices and operating system release dates. Not having Spotify makes pulling Google Trends data mor difficult for some reason.
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.
Until next month.