Google publishes “Local Year in Search 2023” for South Carolina

December 12, 2023

Google released its 23rd annual Year in Search, offering insight into who and what people cared about this year across the globe, including trending topics right here in South Carolina. Based on the Google Trends data, 2023 was a year in which people sought out, on one hand, information on human crises and, on the other hand, entertainment.

Nationwide, hurricanes dominated the trending “news” category along with “War in Israel and Gaza” and “Titanic submarine.” Users asked “how often” quite often, turning up interesting responses from “how often do you think about the Roman Empire” to “How often do trains derail”. When it came to movies, Barbie and Oppenheimer secured the top spots, while Damar Hamlin and Travis Kelce led search trends for athletes.

The Local Year in Search 2023 is a new information hub tracking statewide trends across the U.S. It provides data from three areas of South Carolina–Charleston, Columbia, and Florence. The list breaks down the Top 5 trending searches across four different categories. For example, the Columbia, SC area ranked 1st in the U.S. in top trending searches for “coffee shops near me.”

Below are the 2023 trending searches in the Columbia, SC area:

Top 5 Trending “Tour” searches:
1. Taylor Swift|The Eras Tour
2. Renaissance World Tour
3. Five Albums. One Night. The World Tour.
4. Welcome to Tha Carter Tour
5. ProbleMATTic World Tour

Top 5 Trending “TV Show” searches:
1. The Last of Us
2. The Night Agent
3. The Golden Bachelor
4. Special Ops: Lioness
5. Swarm

Top 5 Trending “Near Me” searches:
1. Catholic church near me
2. Podiatrist near me
3. Coffee shops near me
4. Tow truck near me
5. Pediatrician near me

Top 5 Trending “versus” searches:
1. Jake Paul vs Nate Diaz
2. Colorado vs Stanford
3. Clemson vs Charleston Southern
4. LSU vs Florida Baseball
5. Logan Paul vs Dillon Danis

You can explore more of what people used Google to search for this year by clicking through the Year in Search 2023 landing page. https://trends.google.com/trends/yis/2023/GLOBAL/