As the deadline for the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation compliance draws closer, searches for the acronym “GDPR” on Google’s search engine continue to rise. This has prompted companies like Adobe and IBM — which offer consulting services — to buy up search terms, driving up the price of keywords. 

Since April 2017, searches for the keyword “GDPR” rose 160%, from 22,200 searches in April 2017 to 201,000 in March 2018, according to Google Trends data.

Companies are changing the way they do business to comply with GDPR privacy regulations, and this will directly impact marketers, said Sameer Mohan, analyst at iQuanti.

iQuanti, a data-driven digital marketing agency, also found that searches between January 2018 and March 2018 rose 39% as interest spreads from marketers and businesses to the general public. Searches grew from 135,000 in January 2018 to 201,000 in March 2018, Mohan said, citing the Google Trends data.

Searches for “GDPR compliance” also grew during the past year, rising 143% between April 2017 and March 2018. In April 2017, there were 3,600 searches for “GDPR compliance,” compared with 22,200 searches in March 2018.

Other popular searches around GDPR include “GDPR requirements” and “what is GDPR”, which garnered 18,100 and 12,100 searches in March 2018, respectively. “GDPR requirements” saw an increase in searches of 179% from April 2017, while “what is GDPR” jumped 172% during the same time period.

Data protection and data privacy are two terms that have caught the attention of those searching on Google, too. The keywords “data protection” rose to 1,900 in the beginning of 2017, fell in May and June 2017 to 1,300 and then in July rose again in to 1,900 and has reminded there since.

The top five live search exact matches include “GDPR” at 33,100; “GDPR Compliance” at 5,400, “what is gdpr” at 1,900; “eu gdpr” at 1,600; and “gdpr requirements” at 1,600, according to Google Trends data.

More search ads also have begun to serve up, bidding up the price of keywords such as “GDPR.” Do a search on the keyword “GDPR” to find paid search ads for IBM Data Security, Adobe, and companies such as Digital Defense, and Globalization Partners. 

AdGooroo noticed a 2,232% increase in search spend between November and December in paid-search ads running on Google desktop. It dropped 35% between December and January, and then rose 304% in January and February and another 7% in February and March.

Impressions also saw spikes in January and February of 283%, and clicks rose by 289%. In fact, the estimated cost per click rose 1323% between November and December due to an increase in competitive pressure and spend, according to AdGooroo data.