Coronavirus has shifted how people live their lives in the pandemic. And not just in the real world, as parts of the internet's economy are also changing.
According to Google Trends, the term 'coronavirus' has was never popular before January 2020.
Since the outbreak and the virus reaching more places creating an epidemic, to then become a pandemic, more people are searching for 'coronavirus'. And this gave a shifting long-tail keyword trends that are related to the virus.
For example, more people are searching the web for practical staple than recipes for a good home cooking.
And with social distancing as governments urge more people to stay at home, search terms for home-related activities and 'boredom'-related keywords have also escalated.
The shift of trend has forced search marketers to look into new keywords, which change gradually to meet what's going on with the world, related to the coronavirus.
The coronavirus pandemic has inspired a surge in news readership on many websites. But that however, doesn't make many of them to benefit from it.
While those selling stock phones are benefiting, many news agencies and blogs are struggling because they have difficulties in monetizing the keywords.
The New York Times, CNN, USA Today, and the Washington Post for example, are experiencing a surge in traffic, but apparently didn't experience a concurrent surge in advertising revenue. This is because advertisers are somehow pulling back on what they are spending, and refusing to allow their ads to be placed next to news and stories that report on the pandemic.
In other words, while coronavirus, COVID-19 and other related keywords are booming, but the money that comes with them doesn't really reflect the trend during this pandemic.
According to BuzzFeed News, more than 2 million ads were blocked from appearing on these sites in the first three weeks of March.
Since the pandemic, coronavirus quickly became the most-blocked keyword in the IAS system, surpassing 'Trump'.
