Top Trending Keywords on Google: What Are We Searching For?

Okay, so you might know we’ve got the data about the most searched terms and most asked questions on Google.

But trending keywords per month? That’s a whole other ballgame.

Here’s where the underdog – or even the unknown – keywords can come out on top.

Looking at the percentage increase in search volume from one month to another, we can see the impact of seasonal trends, social media trends, and timely news can have on searches all over the world.

With Similarweb data from our super powerful Keyword Research tool, we teach you how you, as a business, can make the most of these trends in your content and traffic acquisition, helping you to:

• Gain visibility with ultra-relevant content
• Resonate more with your target audience
• Optimize and prioritize your strategy (and budget)
• Get ahead of your competitors
• Reach new heights with your web traffic numbers

Plus, we’re all nosey little things, us human beings so, let’s have a sneak peek at the numbers and see what searches were getting the most hits recently – worldwide, in the US, and in the UK.

Top trending keywords on Google in the world

What we can learn from the top global keyword trends

1) Google knows how to get hits

When it comes to SEO, Google gets the rules… mainly because Google makes the rules.

And for a second month running, doodles.google gets top traffic leader for the top trending keyword in the world.

In January 2024 it was ‘dr. martin luther king jr. day’, and this month it’s ‘leap day 2024’ which was live on … you got it, Leap Day 2024 aka the February 29th.

That’s right, when people opened up Google on February 29th, this was the logo they saw – this is why the search term saw such a huge rise in traffic between January and February.

Following its own rules, the search engine makes sure that users know where they’re heading to if they were to click on these logos – for this date: more info on leap days. And every one of those clicks through to that subdomain, Google counted as a searched term as of October 2023. Bravo, Google – another loophole (that only you can do) to come out on top, again and always.

Here we see the domain of doodles.google emerge in October 2023, and continue to grow month-on-month.

The popularity of Google Doodles backs up how SERP features work for businesses. They give you an opportunity for your content to stand out, and get clicked on.

More brand awareness? More engagement? What’s not to love?

Learn how to win (one of the many) SERP features with our complete guide.

2) Any press is good press

SEOs, close your eyes because at #3 in the top trending keywords in the world is ‘trump shoes’ – and the website’s not pretty.

Not exactly known for being a fashionista, Trump has endorsed a series of items, including the ‘Never Surrender High-Tops’ or the ‘official President Donald Trump Footwear.

Released on February 17th, the search term ‘trump shoes’ saw a huge increase in search volume of over 70,000% from January 2024 to February 2024 – evidently, resulting in a sell out.

Using the Similarweb Keyword Generator and the yearly trend feature, we can see the idea of Donald Trump shoes was never a thing until just now.

Check out the Yearly Trend for related search terms on our Keyword Generator tool. 

Despite the sell out, looking at both the traffic leader for this search term (axios.com) and the percentage of zero-click searches, it seems like a lot of you wanted to just check if *this* was really, truly happening.

In fact, the organic traffic that ‘trump shoes’ gained mostly went to news websites, with trumpstore.com taking only a slither of the traffic share at 6.8% – this compares to axios.com’s 21.2%.

With a website that will not be taken lightly by any SEO, design or UX expert, a search term with low keyword difficulty and low competition, plus a selling rate of $399 per pair, it’s safe to say there was a sweet ROI for the Trump Sneaker.

3) AI continues to infatuate the world

Or shall we say AInfatuate? (We’ll show ourselves out).

So, we know AI being – and we mean, continuously being – a hot topic is no surprise here. But what is interesting is how AI comes to light in monthly trending keywords, including how it’s changed over time.

Within the space of a year, we’ve gone from our list of trending search terms including ‘chatgpt’ through to ‘ai image generator’, but what did February 2024 keyword data bring?

At #29, we had ‘will smith eating spaghetti’.

Yep, that’s right. We’ve all turned into artificial intelligence whizzes, taking each new release bit by bit, to create… a vast series of AI videos of Will Smith eating (or being eaten by) spaghetti.

How do we link this back to your marketing strategy? The importance of experimentation.

If your target audiences are doing these creative things, you should do it too. Now, we’re not saying you need to go all Fresh Prince on your marketing collateral, but constant development of generative AI (and other AI) means we have access to tools that could change-up the way we work for the better.

Across so many industries, our robotic friend is making an impact. Take a look at our recent post, AI to Buy: The Role of Artificial Intelligence in Retail, for example.

Top trending keywords on Google in the US:

What we can learn from the top US keyword trends

1) Super marketing like the Super Bowl

When Super Bowl-related search terms take up 18% of the top 100 trending keywords in the US, you best believe we’re going to talk about the Super Bowl.

Just look at all of them (and all our variations of the same thing – particular shout out to Mahomes):

• superbowl score
• super bowl score
• super bowl scores
• superbowl scores
• usher halftime show
• superbowl stream
• who won the super bowl 2024
• mahomes dad bod
• super bowl commercials 2024
• spongebob super bowl
• watch super bowl 2024
• super bowl ads 2024
• what time is the super bowl
• is usher married
• 2024 super bowl commercials
• superbowl taylor swift
• how to watch the superbowl
• patrick mahomes dad bod

What can you take from one game plan to another? For one, the marketing machine that the Super Bowl is – and that machine has taken the event much further than just a game of American football.

In fact, Super Bowl marketing leans heavily on celebrities, combining sports entertainment with other forms of entertainment for that extra boost. For example, the ever-popular (and ever-searched) Super Bowl ads use celebrities to increase their appeal, buzz and often, humor. Not to mention, how Taylor Swift’s new relationship with Travis Kelce saw Swifties flocking to watch the Super Bowl… or to see the paparazzi pics posted after.

This shows the benefits of considering influencer marketing in your strategy, including:

• Increasing brand awareness
• Breaking into new markets or audiences
• Gaining more social media followers
• Improving credibility and trust in your product
• Boosting sales or subscriptions

In fact, in our recent Marketing Benchmark Report 2024, we saw how businesses that included influencer marketing saw over 3x the engagement rate on social media than in-house brand accounts.

2) The Netflix effect

But it’s clear we weren’t only watching the Super Bowl in February.

Even at a quick glance, we can see that Film and Television as a theme dominates the top 100 trending keywords – excluding Super Bowl-related terms, the theme takes up almost a quarter of the search terms – 24% in fact, if we include actors.

In the full list of top trending keywords, we’ve got movies, we’ve got series, we’ve got documentaries, we’ve got The Grammys, we’ve got Love is Blind (this gets its own mention), and we’ve got trailers to upcoming releases. Many of which are series or movies found on Netflix specifically.

But what can we learn from brands like Netflix and their movie marketing? What gets people talking about these films and series, both old and new?

Seeing as Netflix kinda owned it as a top leader for a lot of these search terms, let’s look at the streaming giant’s tactics.

• Personalization: We know it, you know it, your aunt who uses your mum’s account knows it – Netflix nails personalization per user. If anything, it’s one of their tactics for you to stop sharing passwords with your family and friends.
• Regularly updated: But this personalization never goes stale; Netflix is a champion at refreshing their recommendations and highlights reels to keep you engaged.
• ‘Coming soon’: Netflix is great at using different parts of the platform as ad or trailer ‘real estate’; complete with the date the new show or movie goes live.
• Fresh content: As the most popular streaming platform, they have to keep their content fresh – and they do, introducing brand new Netflix movies and series on a weekly basis.
• Multiple devices: You can watch Netflix from your TV, your laptop and your phone, making it a must-have for those lazy Sundays, long commutes, and queues for coffee.

The fact of the matter is, Netflix as a company are data-driven, customer-centric, and as personalized as technology lets them be. Three qualities that any marketing department aspires to have.

That password crunch hasn’t done too much though. Using the Similarweb Website Segment tool, we can see the ups and downs of visits to the sign-up page in particular – showing no huge surges in sign-ups since the brand started cracking down on shared passwords in the US.

3) Get active with the interactive

Also on our radars is… Jack Sweeney’s flight radar.

If you haven’t heard of him, he’s best known for angering big names like Elon Musk and Taylor Swift by tracking their private jets, and letting the world know where they fly to and from.

February was a big month for Jack, as he was hit with a cease-and-desist letter from Taylor Swift’s legal team, but continued to defend his tracking and public posting. The Instagram account, @TaylorSwiftJets was – sadly – suspended in the same month though.

That’s why these two search terms are so high up in our list of top trending keywords for February 2024, despite tracking since 2022:

• jack sweeney (44)
• taylor swift flight tracker (83)

His rise to fame through his flight tracking publications goes beyond a target audience of plane spotters. It also interests:

• Fans of these celebrities wanting to know their whereabouts
• Eco-warriors judging the CO2 emissions of her travels
• The general public of X (Twitter)

He’s found a content theme that interests a number of perspectives, and initiates varied reactions between them all. The real-time nature of his jet-tracking account, on top of targeting high-profile celebs, spurs on real-time responses.

While we’re not saying everyone should have their own Taylor Swift-tracking tools, it does enlighten us to the power of interactivity in the marketing content we produce.

As a (much more low-key and relatable) example, we can look at moneysavingexpert.com; using our Organic Pages tool, we can see its second best-performing page is moneysavingexpert.com/tax-calculator, which hosts an interactive calculator for visitors to work out their income tax.

This is something we talk about in more detail in our post on gamification marketing.

Top trending keywords on Google in the UK:

What we can learn from the top UK keyword trends

1) One Day, nailing the content distribution

When you’ve got a good piece of content, squeeze that lemon. That’s what happened with the book, One Day by David Nicholls – and it clearly worked its magic.

First published as a novel in 2009, One Day was then turned into a film in August 2022, before being turn into a 14 episode Netflix series in February 2021, hence all the trending searches:

• one day cast (15)
• one day tv series (51) 
• one day imbd (63) 
• one day netflix (74) 
• netflix one day (77)
• one day film (82) 
• leo woodall (88)

These trending search terms prove not only the popularity of the modern love story on all different platforms, but also how content in a new form can reignite interest in another form. In this case, the 2011 film – but we’re sure sales went up for the novel too, given the traffic trend for ‘one day david nicholls’ below.

Think about it like this: 60% of marketers create one piece of content a day, and 7.5 million blog posts are published daily. This is content that can be reconfigured into different content, like:

• eBooks
• Podcasts
• PPC ads
• Paid landing pages
• Twitter threads
• LinkedIn carousels
• Webinars
• Infographics
• Case studies
• Blogs

2) Pancake Day over Valentines Day, any day

Dotted throughout the top 1,000 trending keywords are hints that Pancake Day happened in February, and lots of you wanted to celebrate it:

• pancake batter (111) 
• american pancake recipe (158) 
• gluten free pancakes (277) 
• savoury pancakes (313) 
• pancake day (410) 
• pancake recipe uk (424) 
• how to make pancakes (446) 

… and so on. What isn’t dotted throughout the top 1,000 (let alone top 500) is anything about Valentine’s Day.

Either we’ve got really good with our Valentine’s Day gift inspiration, or we just prefer flipping pancakes. Whatever the reason, this shows the importance of addressing seasonal events and keywords in your marketing strategy.

As you can see, people aren’t only looking to make pancakes around Pancake Day, but it does cause a huge rise in search volume… and traffic.

By preparing seasonal marketing campaigns (big or small) and putting them live at the right time can reap the benefits of:

• Low competition
• Increasing search volume
• Beating your competition

How far in advance you prepare or launch these campaigns will vary. For example, big companies look for Christmas party events from summer time, and ecommerce brands should be planning their Black Friday campaigns year-round to really make the most of the huge marketing event.

3) Wikipedia is traffic leader for 34% of the top 100

Wikipedia is a big dog when it comes to getting information, so it’s no wonder that it’s always seen as a traffic leader in the top trending keywords – but 34% of the top 100 is pretty good going, we must say.

The informational intent behind these Wiki clicks indicates our thirst for information. These days, when we want information on literally anything, we tend to want it fast – impatience is a virtue, and all of that. With a quick Google search, we can get the answers we’re looking for.

Now, back in 2020, Wikipedia lost 3 billion organic search visits to zero-click searches, and Google continues in its attempts to replace Wikipedia as a go-to trusted source of information. Google SERP features get techier and more user-oriented by the day, making it easier for users to get the answers they’re looking for without clicking off the search engine.

For example, let’s take a look at how ‘the office uk’ as a search term, with informational intent fairs in the Wikipedia vs zero-click battle.

The Wikipedia page comes up as the first official ‘blue link’ search result, but you can see that the SERP features for the search term cover:

• The cast of The Office (UK version)
• Links to the streaming channel that host the series
• A full Knowledge Panel

Using the Keyword Generator, we’re able to see that the traffic leader is indeed Wikipedia, however the term has a monthly search volume of just under 163,000, but 75% of those are zero click searches.

However, when it comes to trends and trending search terms, even Google can’t see them coming. This might mean the search results might not give the breadth of information that users are looking for, meaning Wikipedia reigns as the champ of knowledge bases.

What else do the top trending searches tell marketers?

Here are some other fun facts that our data tells us, along with some top tips into making these facts work for you:

• Most of the top trending searches have informational search intent, and the rest were of navigational or local intent. Understanding search intent not only feeds your knowledge about the type of content people are interested in, helping to inform your content strategy but also where users might be in the funnel.
• Taking a look at Keyword Difficulty, we can see that the majority of the top 100 trending searches have a moderate keyword difficulty. You need to find the balance between competitive keywords with high keyword difficulty and the less competitive with low keyword difficulty, giving yourself an opportunity to actually rank on them and gain traffic.
• YouTube shows itself as a traffic leader for a large amount of the top trending searches, showing the appeal of video content, why you should include it in your content strategy, and why you need to optimize it to show up in SERPs.
• Wikipedia, BBC and Reddit are the top traffic leaders with YouTube, showing users search for either unbiased information or varied, personal reviews, proving how important trust and authenticity is.
• The category with the most traffic share goes to… TV Movies and Streaming, however, the next big category is News and Media, showing just how important it is to keep up to date with trending keywords and apply them to your content strategy (while they’re still hot).

Not in the News and Media category yourself? You can – and should – still target the trending keywords and create informative content around them if you’re in one of the smaller industries, but you’ve got to react fast and produce the content quickly, adding your own unique value to it to go head to head with publishers.

Methodology

We analyzed the monthly search volume trends within the Similarweb Digital Marketing Intelligence platform to determine the top trending searches on Google in the US, UK and worldwide for February 2024.

Date range: February 2024 vs. January 2024

Calculation: To find trending data we took the percentage increase in monthly search volume from January to February

Data: Search data is from Similarweb’s Keywords by Industry feature (full how-to below)

Our data is the freshest and most accurate on the market because we use real-user data, which means you can pick up on trending keywords and their search volume as soon as they’re on the up (and not a month later…).

How to find trending searches

Anyway, enough of what’s trending on Google in February 2024. You’ll probably want to get stuck in yourself to find out more about your specific industry, look into what people are searching for in specific countries, or just dig into the newest TikTok trends:

Here’s how to find top trending keywords using our Digital Marketing Intelligence platform:

Step 1: Head to our Keywords by Industry feature – you can choose between a huge variety of industries, but in this case, we chose “All industries”

Step 2: Pick your date and region, then select Trending terms in the table filters

Step 3: Organize your data by Change to see searches that have gained the most search volume from the previous month (%).

FAQs

What was the number one trending term in the world in February 2024?

The top trending term on Google, worldwide for February 2024 was “leap day 2024” which sent users through to Google Doodles.

What was the number one trending term in the US in February 2024?

The top trending keyword in the US for February 2023 was “superbowl score”, which took users through to Yahoo News.

What was the number one trending term in the UK in February 2024?

The top trending keyword in the UK for February 2024 was “steve wright” – the traffic leader for this search term took users to BBC News.

How do I find trending keywords?

It’s super simple! Using our Similarweb platform, head to Keywords by Industry. Then, pick your date range, region, and select Trending terms in the table filters. Organize your data by Change to see searches gaining search volume.