Lights, Camera, SEARCH

There are some search trends we can always anticipate. We know that users will search for “graduation gifts” in May, for “back to school supplies” in September and for “cyber monday deals” in November. However, there are some search query spikes that we never see coming. 

No one anticipated that the drama of the 2022 Academy Awards would result in Oscar related searches reaching 3.8% of all Yahoo Search queries. 

To better understand just how significant this spike was, let’s take a look at some other search surges of 2022. 

• At the beginning of February queries related to Covid peaked at 0.9% of all Yahoo Search queries. 

• At the end of February queries related to Ukraine peaked at 2.3% of all Yahoo Search queries. 

• At the beginning of May queries related to Roe v. Wade peaked at 0.4% of all Yahoo Search queries. 

• And if we look back to April 2020, at the height of the pandemic, queries related to Covid peaked at 5.7% of all Yahoo Search queries.

This data speaks volumes to the immediate impacts cultural phenomenons have on our society. 

Users quickly became more invested in the dispute in Hollywood than the dispute in Ukraine. 

You can see more specifically how queries shifted in the week following the Oscars below…

Because it is hard to predict which world events will peak the interest of our users, we strive to provide you with the resources needed to make informed optimizations. Please take advantage of all our assets including our trending keyword report, fast data feed reporting API, and quarterly event and holiday list. If you’re not sure how to access any of these resources, please reach out to your partner manager. 

This blog is brought to you by Yahoo Strategy + Partner Solutions 
Kavita Ahuja, Business Planning Senior Director
Clement Wong, Princ. Data Engineer
Jordan Wilson, Marketing Manager