How has the dating situation changed due to the COVID-19 state of emergency? A searching keyword study

In the season getting close to Valentine’s Day, there are maybe some of you who worry about date planning, especially under condition of COVID-19.

Here is the graph representing the trend of users searching for “dating”. The number rapidly decreased after the declaration of state of emergency in April 2020, but returned to a certain level after July 2020.

The following is the list of keywords cross-searched along with “dating” and sorted by number of users.

From the table, we can see the cross search of “COVID-19 dating” in second place closely followed by the general search of “dating” in first place. It seems that although cross searches of “dating + location names” occupied the whole list, the concerns of COVID-19 were greater. Users might be trying to search for the possible activities that can be enjoyed under restricted rules.

Next, here is the list of keywords cross-searched along with “dating”.

Among the related keywords, “COVID-19” took third place. Let’s compare the trends of users searching for “COVID-19” with those for “dinner” in first place and “Tokyo” in second place.

The graph shows the opposite trend of “COVID-19”, “dinner” and “Tokyo”. There were almost no cross searches of “dating” and “COVID-19” before February 2020, but they suddenly increased in March due to the pandemic concerns from mass media. The peak number of searches for COVID-19 was reached in April under the state of emergency. After the state of emergency lifted, the number in May declined, and even became less than that in March.

The users who searched “dating” along with “COVID-19” wanted to know if it is allowed to go out or how to plan a date under the pandemic.

The article “The breakups under COVID-19” included in the ranking also convey the worries of the possibility of breakup or divorce due to COVID-19 condition.

The following is a comparison of user gender. We want to know if there were gender ratio differences among different keywords. By the way, the gender ratios of users searching for “dating” were 50.9% male and 49.1% female.

The words in the graph are the ranked related keywords excluding location names. There were more female users searching for “outfits”, and more male users for “recommendations” and “dinner”. From the data, we suppose that there were more male users trying to plan the dates, considering where to go or what to do. On the contrary, female users tended to consider their appearance for the date.

The gender ratio of male users in the search for “second date” is somewhat more than that of female users but without much difference.

By using Dockpit, we found that COVID-19 was not the biggest concern of dating anymore after half a year passed from the declaration of the state of emergency.

Let’s see the change in interest using the seasonal comparison function.

From March to May, including the period of state of emergency, the mainly searched keywords included “state of emergency”, “self-quarantine”, and “COVID-19”. However, in the period of September to November, instead of words related to pandemic, keywords such as “autumn” or “autumn leaves” occupied the searching results.

After the seasonal keywords, let’s take a look at the user interest by the rankings of inflow sites and pages from June to November 2020.

In the inflow site rankings, the travel reservation site “Jalan.net” is in first place. Jalan. net was one of the sites in which the GoTo travel coupon could be used in 2020. This may be the reason why it got such attention.

On the other hand, “[2020 autumn] 40 best date spots in Tokyo!” is at the top of the list of inflow page rankings. Although the keyword “COVID-19” is included in the pages in third and eighth place, other pages are related to general dating interests such as “date in Tokyo” or “how to choose a restaurant on your first date”.

The concerns related to dating seem to separate from COVID-19 at present. However, we wouldn’t be surprised if the trend is changed by another state of emergency in January 2021.

At last, here is the summary of this investigation.

•The number of searching users for “dating” markedly reduced during the state of emergency but returned to a certain level after November 2020.
•From the inflow pages of the keywords searching for “COVID-19” and “dating”, the concerns of users mainly included:
1. How to date under the pandemic condition;
2. The possibility of breakup or divorce due to COVID-19 condition.
•The ratio of male and female users searching for “dating” was almost the same.
•From gender ratios of other keywords, it seems that male users were concerned more about how to plan the dates and searched more keywords such as “recommendations”, while female users were more concerned about how to make the dates better and searched more keywords such as “outfits”.
•From the inflow sites and pages from the searching keyword of “dating” until November 2020, the importance of COVID-19 in relation to dating gradually decreased. However, the trend could be changed if there is further spread of infection.

It would be our honor if this study can support any marketing plan associated with dating under COVID-19.


The data in this investigation is from “Dockpit”, an analysis tool with online behavior log data and user demographic information under the permission of panelists in Japan presented by VALUES, Inc. between December 2019 to November 2020.
* The numbers of users are estimated by the data in the monitor and the internet population in Japan.