Analyzing trending Google searches by US state
What each US state was searching for, week by week, from Google Trends.
Each week, I took the searches Google listed as top or rising in the US and in individual states.
A search only counts in weeks when people searched it at least twice as much as usual. That’s why weather, YouTube or other daily “base noise” never show up, and why e.g. Halloween takes over every October.
Google Trends compares only five searches at a time, so each week’s candidates are compared against a shared reference search, which puts them all on a single scale.
Google counts every search containing the word, so “Halloween” includes “halloween costume ideas”, “halloween parties near me” etc. And since the map only counts searches way above their usual level, holidays jump out.
One search that puzzled me was “latin pop”. I dug a bit deeper, and it turns out it was a Google Doodle: on 23 September 2026, Google ran “The Art of Latin Pop” for Hispanic Heritage Month, and clicking the Doodle searched “latin pop”.
