Technology
Animated Map: What America Searched for on Google, Over the Last Decade
What America Searched for on Google, in the Last Decade
Cultural shifts come in many shapes and forms, and some are harder to measure than others.
Thankfully, Google search volume provides an easy avenue for measuring large-scale cultural trends. And because Google makes up more than 90% of all internet searches in the U.S., looking at what’s trending on Google is a great way to understand the shifting questions and interests that are captivating society at any given time.
This animated map by V1 Analytics provides an overview of the top trending Google searches in every state over the last decade. It sheds light on what types of new information, events, and stories received the most attention in the last ten years—and more generally, it shows us what the U.S. population has been thinking about.
Trending Searches versus Top Searches
Before diving into the top trends of the decade, it’s worth taking a moment to distinguish between “trending searches” and “top searches”:
- Trending Searches: Keywords that had the largest increase in traffic, in a specific period of time
- Top Searches: The most searched keywords in a given time frame
This video would look a lot different, and a lot less interesting, if it showed Google’s top searches. To give some perspective, here are the Top 10 Searches in the U.S. (as of 2020):
Rank | Keyword |
---|---|
#1 | |
#2 | youtube |
#3 | amazon |
#4 | gmail |
#5 | |
#6 | weather |
#7 | ebay |
#8 | yahoo |
#9 | walmart |
#10 | yahoo mail |
Understanding the difference between trending searches and top searches is important because it gives us insight into why certain keywords trend in some places, but not others. For instance, in March 2020, the word “coronavirus” was trending throughout a majority of the U.S., with a few exceptions—it wasn’t trending in Massachusetts, California, Texas, Nevada, or Arizona.
It’s easy to make the assumption that people in these states were not concerned about COVID-19—however, that’s not necessarily the case.
It’s important to remember that trending searches are measured by the increase of traffic, not just the overall amount of searches. Therefore, in states where it wasn’t trending, the word “coronavirus” may have already been a popular search term for a while, so the keyword didn’t see a sudden spike in interest like it did in other places.
Undivided Attention
In the last decade, there were moments when the entire country was googling the same thing. Some keyword trends lasted a day, while others lasted over a week.
Here’s a look at keywords that took over the whole U.S, and when they were trending unanimously:
Date Range | Category | Search Term |
---|---|---|
Feb 4, 2011 | Music | Adele |
Feb 6 - Feb 23, 2011 | Music | Born This Way |
Feb 28, 2011 | Music | Born This Way |
March 22 - Apr 1, 2011 | Pop Culture | Rebecca Black |
June 12 - June 27, 2011 | TV & Film | Game of Thrones |
Nov 9, 2012 | Current Events | Abortion |
Jan 10 - Jan 27, 2014 | TV & Film | Frozen |
Feb 28 - March 2, 2014 | Electronics | Samsung Galaxy s5 |
Jan 11 - Jan 13, 2015 | Music | Blank Space |
Feb 26 - Mar 30, 2015 | Music | Uptown Funk |
June 5, 2015 | Pop Culture | Caitlyn Jenner |
June 16 - June 19, 2015 | TV & Film | Jurassic World |
Feb 26, 2016 | Pop Culture | Damn Daniel |
June 3, 2016 | Pop Culture | Harambe |
June 20, 2016 | TV & Film | Finding Dory |
June 30, 2016 | TV & Film | Finding Dory |
July 6, 2016 | TV & Film | Finding Dory |
Aug 4 - Aug 7, 2016 | TV & Film | Suicide Squad |
Aug 24 - Sept 8, 2016 | Pop Culture | Harambe |
Sept 23 - Sept 26, 2016 | Pop Culture | Brad Pitt |
Oct 21, 2016 | Electronics | Google Pixel |
Nov 24, 2016 | Electronics | Google Pixel |
Dec 14 - Dec 20, 2016 | Current Events | Aleppo |
Jan 7 - Jan 10, 2017 | TV & Film | This Is Us |
Jan 23 - Feb 2, 2017 | TV & Film | This Is Us |
Feb 8 - Feb 12, 2017 | Sports | Super bowl |
Feb 22 - Feb 24, 2017 | TV & Film | This Is Us |
March 7 - March 11, 2017 | Electronics | Nintendo Switch |
March 21 - Apr 1, 2017 | TV & Film | Beauty and the Beast |
May 7 - May 16, 2017 | Pop Culture | Fidget Spinner |
June 17 - July 18, 2017 | Music | Despacito |
Sept 22, 2017 | TV & Film | It |
Oct 13, 2017 | Current Events | Harvey Weinstein |
Nov 3, 2017 | Current Events | Kevin Spacey |
Jan 12 - Jan 23, 2018 | Current Events | Logan Paul |
Feb 6 - Feb 11, 2018 | TV & Film | Altered Carbon |
March 15 - March 29, 2018 | Video Games | Fortnite |
May 4, 2018 | Video Games | Fortnite |
July 21, 2018 | Video Games | Fortnite |
Aug 5 - Aug 22, 2018 | Video Games | Fortnite |
Jan 17 - Feb 3, 2019 | Music | 7 Rings |
Feb 21 - Feb 23, 2019 | Current Events | Jussie Smollett |
March 12 - March 22, 2019 | TV & Film | Captain Marvel |
March 27, 2019 | Music | Billie Eilish |
March 30, 2019 | Music | Billie Eilish |
Aug 24 - Aug 27, 2019 | Music | Billie Eilish |
Oct 9 - Oct 29, 2019 | TV & Film | Joker |
Nov 20 - Nov 24, 2019 | TV & Film | The Mandalorian |
Dec 5 - Dec 14, 2019 | Pop Culture | Baby Yoda |
Jan 15, 2020 | Current Events | Prince Harry |
Jan 20, 2020 | Current Events | Prince Harry |
Feb 13 - Feb 15, 2020 | TV & Film | Jojo Rabbit |
May 5 - May 14, 2020 | Current Events | Elon Musk |
June 24, 2020 | Current Events | Bubba Wallace |
It’s interesting to look at the variety of topics that dominate the population’s collective thoughts. There’s a unique mix of popular culture, entertainment, electronics, prominent figures, and public scandals.
Something else worth noting is how country-wide trends became a lot more common in the latter part of the decade—in 2019 for example, 9 keywords trended unanimously. This was more than in the entire first half of the decade.
While the secret to going viral remains a mystery, one thing remains clear—the public certainly has a broad range of interests. So really, it’s anyone’s game.
Technology
Nvidia Joins the Trillion Dollar Club
America’s biggest chipmaker Nvidia has joined the trillion dollar club as advancements in AI move at lightning speed.

Nvidia Joins the Trillion Dollar Club
Chipmaker Nvidia is now worth nearly as much as Amazon.
America’s largest semiconductor company has vaulted past the $1 trillion market capitalization mark, a milestone reached by just a handful of companies including Apple, Amazon, and Microsoft. While many of these are household names, Nvidia has only recently gained widespread attention amid the AI boom.
The above graphic compares Nvidia to the seven companies that have reached the trillion dollar club.
Riding the AI Wave
Nvidia’s market cap has more than doubled in 2023 to over $1 trillion.
The company designs semiconductor chips that are made of silicon slices that contain specific patterns. Just like you flip an electrical switch by turning on a light at home, these chips have billions of switches that process complex information simultaneously.
Today, they are integral to many AI functions—from OpenAI’s ChatGPT to image generation. Here’s how Nvidia stands up against companies that have achieved the trillion dollar milestone:
Joined Club | Market Cap in trillions | Peak Market Cap in trillions |
|
---|---|---|---|
Apple | Aug 2018 | $2.78 | $2.94 |
Microsoft | Apr 2019 | $2.47 | $2.58 |
Aramco | Dec 2019 | $2.06 | $2.45 |
Alphabet | Jul 2020 | $1.58 | $1.98 |
Amazon | Apr 2020 | $1.25 | $1.88 |
Meta | Jun 2021 | $0.68 | $1.07 |
Tesla | Oct 2021 | $0.63 | $1.23 |
Nvidia | May 2023 | $1.02 | $1.02 |
Note: Market caps as of May 30th, 2023
After posting record sales, the company added $184 billion to its market value in one day. Only two other companies have exceeded this number: Amazon ($191 billion), and Apple ($191 billion).
As Nvidia’s market cap reaches new heights, many are wondering if its explosive growth will continue—or if the AI craze is merely temporary. There are cases to be made on both sides.
Bull Case Scenario
Big tech companies are racing to develop capabilities like OpenAI. These types of generative AI require vastly higher amounts of computing power, especially as they become more sophisticated.
Many tech giants, including Google and Microsoft use Nvidia chips to power their AI operations. Consider how Google plans to use generative AI in six products in the future. Each of these have over 2 billion users.
Nvidia has also launched new products days since its stratospheric rise, spanning from robotics to gaming. Leading the way is the A100, a powerful graphics processing unit (GPU) well-suited for machine learning. Additionally, it announced a new supercomputer platform that Google, Microsoft, and Meta are first in line for. Overall, 65,000 companies globally use the company’s chips for a wide range of functions.
Bear Case Scenario
While extreme investor optimism has launched Nvidia to record highs, how do some of its fundamental valuations stack up to other giants?
As the table below shows, its price to earnings (P/E) ratio is second-only to Amazon, at 214.4. This shows how much a shareholder pays compared to the earnings of a company. Here, the company’s share price is over 200 times its earnings on a per share basis.
P/E Ratio | Net Profit Margin (Annual) | |
---|---|---|
Apple | 30.2 | 25.3% |
Microsoft | 36.1 | 36.7% |
Aramco | 13.5 | 26.4% |
Alphabet | 28.2 | 21.2% |
Amazon | 294.2 | -0.5% |
Meta | 33.9 | 19.9% |
Tesla | 59.0 | 15.4% |
Nvidia | 214.4 | 16.19% |
Consider how this looks for revenue of Nvidia compared to other big tech names:
$NVDA $963 billion market cap, 38x Revenue
$MSFT $2.5 trillion market cap, 12x Revenue$TSLA $612 billion market cap, 7.8x Revenue$AAPL $2.75 trillion market cap, 7.3x Revenue$GOOG $1.6 trillion market cap, 6.1x Revenue$META $672 billion market cap, 6x Revenue pic.twitter.com/VgkKAfiydx— Martin Pelletier (@MPelletierCIO) May 29, 2023
For some, Nvidia’s valuation seems unrealistic even in spite of the prospects of AI. While Nvidia has $11 billion in projected revenue for the next quarter, it would still mean significantly higher multiples than its big tech peers. This suggests the company is overvalued at current prices.
Nvidia’s Growth: Will it Last?
This is not the first time Nvidia’s market cap has rocketed up.
During the crypto rally of 2021, its share price skyrocketed over 100% as demand for its GPUs increased. These specialist chips help mine cryptocurrency, and a jump in demand led to a shortage of chips at the time.
As cryptocurrencies lost their lustre, Nvidia’s share price sank over 46% the following year.
By comparison, AI advancements could have more transformative power. Big tech is rushing to partner with Nvidia, potentially reshaping everything from search to advertising.
-
Central Banks4 weeks ago
Comparing the Speed of Interest Rate Hikes (1988-2023)
-
China2 weeks ago
Ranked: The Cities with the Most Skyscrapers in 2023
-
War4 weeks ago
Map Explainer: Sudan
-
Mining2 weeks ago
Ranked: The World’s Biggest Steel Producers, by Country
-
Travel4 weeks ago
Visualized: The World’s Busiest Airports, by Passenger Count
-
Visual Capitalist2 weeks ago
Join Us For Data Creator Con 2023
-
AI4 weeks ago
Visualizing Global Attitudes Towards AI
-
Money2 weeks ago
Charted: Public Trust in the Federal Reserve