COVID Pushes Government Search Traffic
It’s not a surprise to hear that COVID-19 drove internet traffic over the past year, particularly when looking at searches across .gov websites. What’s somewhat unique about looking at search traffic on government sites as compared to commercial sites online is that all federal government websites are using the same search.gov service for their queries. This means that rather than looking at searches at an individual agency’s site, we can look at results and trends from across the federal government.
While many of the terms searched were things that are seen year after year, which include benefits, forms, and outer space-related searches, the overall top term searched was “loans.” There was certainly a frenzy related to businesses trying to secure Paycheck Protection Program loans, but also plenty of concern surrounding other types of loans like student debt and mortgages. This term was closely followed by the term “benefits.”
A variety of the search terms that ranked on the list were things that have appeared in the past like “forms,” “jobs,” or “find offices,” but in 2020 they were all tied more closely to the pandemic. While the results highlighted to government agencies that they need to make information related to the pandemic easily accessible, it also showed the need for standard services to be reachable clearly online, and to a wide swath of the general public. In previous years, many citizens were able to walk into a government office to get the information, forms, or assistance they needed, but 2020 had many people navigating government services online for the first time.
The two terms that ranked highly but were unaffected by the pandemic were “space” and “immigration.” The need for forms related to immigration and information about programs like DACA remained consistent. As for space, it seems that the pandemic didn’t put a damper on anyone’s need for a bit of escapism.
Our government clients at Extract have moved their records online for a variety of reasons. Some have done so because of new laws or mandates, some have just been forward thinking offices that want to get ahead of the curve, and others were motivated by the pandemic.
By strengthening the availability of online records and forms, governments are able to neatly transition to any episode that might restrict their walk-in traffic. Once this foot traffic resumes, they’ll still be able to offer the same in-person services as before, but now give their constituents flexibility in how they’d like to interact with the government. Many local governments were even able to use stimulus funds from the CARES Act to be able to fund these programs when they were needed most.
If you’d like to learn more about how Extract can automate your redaction or indexing process to get your records ready to be made available online, please reach out.
