The 2024 U.S. Presidential Election served as a digital battleground for top news sites globally. Recognized as the Best SEO Software Suite in the U.S., U.K., and Europe for three consecutive years, NewzDash offers an unparalleled analysis of election-related trends. Over six months, we monitored more than 5,000 trending keywords, delivering real-time insights every 15 minutes to help news publishers optimize content and gain a competitive edge in News SEO.

A Historic Inauguration Day

On January 20, 2025, Donald John Trump was sworn in for his second term as President of the United States. Due to extreme cold, the traditional outdoor ceremony was moved inside the historic U.S. Capitol rotunda, making this inauguration a unique moment in U.S. history.

Our analysis spans January 13-21, 2025, covering the buildup, live coverage, and post-event reactions. By examining keyword performance and search behavior during this pivotal week, we reveal how audiences engaged online with this historic occasion.

Key Findings: Ranking Sites Pre, During, and Post Event

Pre-Inauguration Period:

• washingtonpost.com dominated visibility with 7.34%, benefiting from broad coverage and consistent ranking positions.
• nytimes.com and cnn.com followed, leveraging a mix of timely reporting and strategic keyword targeting.
• Proactive content creation focusing on trending keywords such as "Donald Trump" and "inauguration" resulted in significant visibility for top publishers.

Inauguration Day:

• cnn.com led visibility during the live event, with its real-time updates and extensive topic coverage.
• usatoday.com achieved the highest unique URL count, showcasing a breadth of coverage on inauguration-related topics.
• Sites with robust live coverage strategies and optimized headlines for trending queries saw substantial gains in Search Visibility.

Post-Inauguration Period:

• usatoday.com emerged as the top domain, capturing 7.00% visibility by shifting focus to post-event analysis and celebrity attendees.
• nbcnewyork.com gained traction by highlighting local and specific aspects of the inauguration.
• Interest in Elon Musk and Melania Trump’s fashion choices provided opportunities for niche coverage, benefiting domains like nypost.com and yahoo.com.

Inauguration Day - Jan 20, 2025

Top Keywords and Trends

NewzDash tracked over 270 trending keywords with the highest search volumes, including:

• ​Trump-Specific Keywords:
  • Donald Trump (1,429,576), trump (6,287,616), Trump Inauguration (1,889,089), Trump inauguration 2025 (151,511), Trump 47th President inauguration (2,596), Trump Inauguration Day (189,116), Trump inauguration parade (9,967), etc
• Inauguration Events and Performers: 
  • Presidential inauguration (378,407), Inauguration Performers (22,654), Trump inauguration performers (14,002), Carrie Underwood (500,000), Lauren Sanchez (500,000), Inauguration Start Time (3,141), inauguration singers (4,846), Nelly (66,836)
• Trump Administration and Policies: 
  • Trump executive orders (588,534), Trump inauguration executive orders (26,573), etc
• Family and Affiliates: 
  • Melania Trump (841,718), Ivanka Trump (192,644), Tiffany Trump (200,000), Melania Trump inauguration fashion (393), Ivanka Trump inauguration (50,000)
• Cryptocurrency and Finance: 
  • Bitcoin (662,700), Trump inauguration Bitcoin (4,688), etc
• Billionaires and Tech:
  • Musk (1,189,603), Elon Musk (1,126,290), Bezos (267,541), Jeff Bezos (200,000), etc
• Protests and Public Reaction: 
  • Trump inauguration supporters (10,282)
• Other Notable Figures:
  • jd vance (1,000,000), amy klobuchar (200,000), Kid Rock (102,192), Snoop Dogg (196,553)
• Miscellaneous Topics:
  • Trump meme coins (11,402), Elon Musk DOGE lawsuit (1,192), US Dollar (31,760), Inauguration Day flag (2,991)

NewzDash is able to estimate Search Volume of new and trending keywords with 76% accuracy. Understanding the Search Interest enables SEOs and Editorial team to prioritize the keywords and topics to target especially with limited resources

Google Mobile Search Top Stories (News Box) Visibility

Visibility in Google’s Mobile Search Top Stories (News Box) played a crucial role. Here are the top performers:

Rank		Domain	Authority	Visibility	Avg. Position	Topic Coverage	Appearances	Unique URLs
1		cnn.com	100x	4.30%	6.71	38.99%	591	57
2		usatoday.com	97x	4.16%	7.96	51.62%	785	76
3		nytimes.com	85x	3.64%	7.52	38.99%	570	66
4		apnews.com	80x	3.45%	10.50	42.24%	723	59
5		nbcnewyork.com	77x	3.33%	6.35	20.58%	357	31
6		cbsnews.com	76x	3.27%	8.29	42.24%	627	67
7		foxnews.com	75x	3.24%	8.21	40.07%	630	99
8		forbes.com	68x	2.93%	7.16	34.30%	380	40
9		bbc.com	57x	2.44%	8.15	32.13%	369	37
10		npr.org	51x	2.17%	10.87	34.30%	488	35

 

Google Mobile Search LIVE RED PILL Visibility

Rank		Domain	Authority	Visibility	Avg. Position	Topic Coverage	Appearances	Unique URLs
1		cnn.com	100x	13.68%	5.33	37.50%	148	1
2		nytimes.com	82x	11.20%	4.39	26.14%	117	2
3		nbcnews.com	69x	9.46%	6.53	38.64%	150	3
4		cbsnews.com	56x	7.61%	7.41	29.55%	119	1
5		foxnews.com	55x	7.48%	7.25	31.82%	119	2
6		apnews.com	40x	5.53%	8.14	23.86%	93	1
7		usatoday.com	38x	5.23%	7.30	28.41%	84	2
8		politico.com	36x	4.89%	7.02	23.86%	83	14
9		cnbc.com	35x	4.75%	9.24	28.41%	118	2
10		washingtonpost.com	29x	4.02%	7.83	31.82%	87	2

 

Pre-Inauguration Day - Jan 13-19, 2025

Leading up to Inauguration Day, we tracked over 400 keywords. The highest-ranking terms included:

• Trump (24,906,031) , Donald Trump (22,176,412) , inauguration (4,750,491) , California (2,237,599) , Musk (1,006,168) , inauguration day (1,000,000) , Trump Inauguration (840,138) , Elon Musk (651,996) , China (603,864) , $trump (500,000) , Bitcoin (365035) , snoop dogg (203,008) , Carrie Underwood (200,000) , village people (200,000) , Kid Rock (141,715) , Cold weather (124,254) , Michelle Obama (107,058) , Zuckerberg (91,306) , Inauguration 2025 (86,803) , Donald Trump Inauguration (74,084) , Nelly (42,997) , Snoop Dogg Trump inauguration (37,155) , etc

Google Mobile Search Top Stories (News Box) Visibility

Visibility in Google’s Mobile Search Top Stories (News Box) played a crucial role. Here are the top performers:

Rank		Domain	Authority	Visibility	Avg. Position	Topic Coverage	Appearances	Unique URLs
1		washingtonpost.com	100x	7.34%	6.64	47.12%	1,081	54
2		nytimes.com	71x	5.25%	6.89	39.35%	906	64
3		cnn.com	70x	5.17%	5.66	36.59%	793	59
4		foxnews.com	62x	4.55%	6.99	37.34%	879	106
5		usatoday.com	54x	3.98%	6.55	40.10%	704	54
6		abcnews.go.com	50x	3.68%	6.60	35.84%	756	43
7		forbes.com	48x	3.49%	8.19	20.80%	485	25
8		cbsnews.com	46x	3.38%	7.20	34.34%	573	57
9		nbcnews.com	41x	3.03%	9.50	32.33%	781	58
10		apnews.com	38x	2.76%	9.57	35.59%	677	59

 

Post-Inauguration Day - Jan 21, 2025

Following the inauguration, keyword focus shifted:​

• Celebrity Focus: Post-inauguration discussions shifted toward performers and celebrity attendees.
• Increased Specificity: Broader keywords like presidential inauguration saw a decline as interest focused on specific moments or individuals.
• Musk's Prominence: Elon Musk-related topics showed a significant increase, overshadowing most other non-Trump-related subjects.
• Continued Trump Interest: While general interest in Trump remained high, more attention shifted to personal aspects, such as family members and outfits.
• Emerging Protests: Demonstrations gained more visibility, introducing a new layer to the inauguration's narrative.

Google Mobile Search Top Stories (News Box) Visibility

Rank		Domain	Authority	Visibility	Avg. Position	Topic Coverage	Appearances	Unique URLs
1		usatoday.com	100x	7.00%	7.92	50.30%	907	57
2		nbcnewyork.com	75x	5.23%	4.85	20.12%	423	14
3		nytimes.com	69x	4.80%	6.46	43.20%	583	57
4		cnn.com	64x	4.49%	8.09	30.18%	469	42
5		apnews.com	58x	4.05%	10.44	37.28%	635	45
6		foxnews.com	55x	3.86%	7.73	36.09%	527	50
7		yahoo.com	50x	3.47%	7.64	47.93%	582	69
8		nypost.com	44x	3.07%	7.98	34.91%	521	44
9		washingtonpost.com	41x	2.84%	10.70	31.95%	577	36
10		independent.co.uk	40x	2.82%	6.64	18.34%	299	30

 

Methodology

NewzDash leverages advanced tracking methods, surpassing standard keyword tracking. By tapping into real-time coverage and trends, we detect all relevant trending keywords, dynamically capturing shifts in user interests. This analysis covers keywords tracked from January 13 to 21, 2025, with a focus on the peak event period. Our analysis includes emerging long-tail keywords, though our primary focus is on high-impact trends relevant to publishers.

Search Visibility

Our main metric to determine top ranking news sites in Top Stories is Search Visibility. Search Visibility is a crucial SEO metric that represents the estimated percentage of clicks (traffic) a website receives from its rankings for a particular keyword or set of keywords. It is a measure of how visible your website is in search engine results pages (SERPs) for specific queries.

How NewzDash Calculates Search Visibility:

NewzDash's calculation of Search Visibility for SERP features like Top Stories involves several factors:

• Ranking Position: The higher you rank for a keyword, the more visible you are and the higher your potential for clicks.
• Estimated CTR: The CTR for each ranking position is estimated based on historical data and user behavior. Higher rankings typically yield higher CTRs.
• Ranking Duration: We measure rankings every 15 minutes to accurately capture the length of time a website appears in the Top Stories carousel.
• Number of Ranked URLs: The more URLs from a domain that rank for relevant keywords, the higher the total visibility.

Note: Search volume is not included in our calculations due to the difficulty of estimating it for all new and trending search terms.