After months of preparation, Election Day 2024 in the US is now over. How did news publishers fare across Google’s search landscape? Here are the top insights we obtained from the Trisolute News Dashboard after analyzing the mobile and desktop SERPs in the US along with Google Discover data.

Looking for UK and Australian news publisher data? Check out our analysis for key insights into how the US election fared in search in these parts of the world.

Election Day SERP display takeaways

The morning of Election Day, CNN was fortunate to receive a “double dip” of visibility atop the Google desktop SERP for the keyword “election day” with a single link to its live updates election article above the Top Stories News Box, as well as the same article appearing in the Top Stories News Box directly below it. In the early afternoon, CNN received another “double dip” treatment, this time with their live updates election article appearing just below the Top Stories News Box in which the same CNN article also appeared. This is not a common SERP format for political keywords, but CNN benefited from the increased visibility.

A rare Top Stories News Box with five slots for a political keyword appeared on the Google desktop SERP around noon on Election Day. In our previous election analysis, we discussed the shrinking factor when it came to political keywords and the Top Stories News Box in 2024. Overall the smaller Top Stories News Box with a maximum of three articles dominated the desktop SERP early on Election Day for political keywords before Google’s election results SERP layout took over and pushed the Top Stories News Box down as occurred during the 2020 election.

Images that depicted Trump and Harris side-by-side fared well in the Top Stories News Box on Election Day.

Google’s election results SERP layout that’s unveiled on Election Day appeared as expected, taking up a large amount of real estate and pushing down the Top Stories News Box significantly. It launched in the early afternoon period on Election Day.

The Google SERP on mobile also looked as expected on Election Day, taking up to three swipes to get past the election results layout and uncover the Top Stories News Box. You can see that depicted below from left to right.

SERP performance insights: Election Day 2024

Note: Publishers in the legend are sorted by Google visibility in descending order.

• “US election” was the top keyword in News Box visibility on Google’s mobile and desktop SERPs. The Guardian owned topic authority for this keyword.
• The New York Times had the most mobile and desktop News Box visibility rankings, followed by NBC News, CNN, Fox News, and AP.
• NBC News owned topic authority for the keyword “exit polls” and Fox News won for keyword “Walz” proving it can be a smart strategy to target less competitive election-related keywords. 
• CNN won the visibility battle for the highly competitive keyword “election live updates” on both the mobile and desktop SERPs.
• Live update articles dominated in visibility rankings on both mobile and desktop SERPs.
• In a Trump vs. Harris keyword showdown, Trump had slightly more Mobile News Box rankings vs. Harris (404-385) while Harris edged out Trump in Desktop News Box rankings on Election Day 2024 (514-488).

Video Box

Note: Publishers in the legend are sorted by Google visibility in descending order.

• YouTube dominated in Video Box visibility rankings; with CNN a distant second. AP News, NBC, and CBS rounded out the top 5.
• Hindustan Times made a strong showing in Video Box rankings, coming in at 5th place.
• “Election results live” was the top-performing keyword in Video Box rankings. Reuters had the most visibility rankings via YouTube for their election livestream coverage. A local affiliate, Fox 5 New York, earned second place for “election results live”. A non-US publisher, The Times and The Sunday Times, came in third place.

Google News

• CNN had the best results on Election Day with their live updates coverage. Joe Rogan’s last-minute Trump endorsement was the top performer for The New York Times and Fox News on Election Day.

Google Discover

• Live updates, especially at the state level, were the top performers on Discover on Election Day for a selection of major US news publishers.

Organic

• AP edged out Wikipedia in mobile and desktop rankings from organic search for election-related terms on Election Day. This isn’t surprising considering AP’s dominant presence in Google’s Election Day SERP layout.
• On the desktop SERP, Instagram and Facebook were among the top 10 performers in organic rankings for election-related terms on Election Day. President Job Biden’s account earned the most Google visibility rankings from the two social media platforms.

2020 vs 2024 Election Day performance insights:

• On the mobile and desktop SERPs, YouTube almost doubled Video Box rankings on Election Day 2024 vs. 2020. YouTube dominated the visibility rankings  on Election Day 2024 for the keywords “election live updates” and “election results live”. This trend reflects younger generations who prefer online video streaming platforms like YouTube vs. the traditional cable TV news sources for live events like an election.
• One interesting note is that for mobile and desktop organic results for two popular election keywords on Election Day: “election” and “election results”, Google chose to give more visibility rankings to .gov URLs vs. news publishers. In 2020, this was not the case.

SEO strategies to consider for the next election:

• For hyper-competitive search events like an election, consider targeting the less competitive keywords, as NBC did above for “exit polls” and Fox News did for “Walz” to earn search visibility wins.
• Don’t focus on just US news publishers as competitors. Non-US news publishers such as The Times and The Sunday Times, The Guardian, and Hindustan Times showed strong Google visibility rankings for key 2024 US election keywords.
• Ensure your video content is uploaded and optimized for YouTube. Fox 5 New York was able to score a big win with their Election Day video content. Non-US news publishers also fared well in video rankings.
• On Discover, live race results at the state level performed well. If local results are of interest to your audience, it’s worth optimizing for Discover as well.
• When preparing for the next election, review the questions that are being searched for the most for each candidate, as was captured for the 2024 US Election in this Similarweb study. This research can uncover hidden gems when it comes to creating explainers that address the questions voters have by demonstrating your publication’s authority and expertise. 

Not yet part of the Trisolute News Dashboard family? Request your FREE demo today and find out how your articles rank on Google Discover, Google News and the SERPs!