The Portland Index: Search Me

How closely does Portland follow web trends?

Look around—those 17 other people next to you in the coffee shop hunched over their laptops might be hunting the Web for kitty videos or Kate Middleton's tanning habits. You, of course, are Googling much more important things. But as a community, just how creative are we on the Internet? Google knows. Its Google Zeitgeist project tracks by geographic area how Internet users differ in their searches from search terms that trend big nationally. Out of 51 major metro areas, Portland is middling in its nonconformity at No. 22. The city whose search patterns differ most from those in the rest of the U.S. is Birmingham, Ala. Those cities whose searches are most in line with national norms include Pittsburgh, Detroit and Chicago.

WWeek 2015

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