October 30, 2009

Google Flu Trends Intense in Canada, High in United States

Okay, so Google Flu Trends has been around since November of 2008. But Google has found that certain search terms are good indicators of flu activity.

Check out the world map below to see how Google Flu Trends uses aggregated Google search data to estimate flu activity. It is intense in Canada and Norway. It is high in Belgium, Bulgaria, Hungary, Sweden, Russia, Ukraine, and the United States.

Each week, millions of users around the world search for health information online. As you might expect, there are more flu-related searches during flu season, more allergy-related searches during allergy season, and more sunburn-related searches during the summer.

You can explore all of these phenomena using Google Insights for Search. But can search query trends provide the basis for an accurate, reliable model of real-world phenomena?

Google has found a close relationship between how many people search for flu-related topics and how many people actually have flu symptoms. Of course, not every person who searches for "flu" is actually sick, but a pattern emerges when all the flu-related search queries are added together.

Google compared its query counts with traditional flu surveillance systems and found that many search queries tend to be popular exactly when flu season is happening. By counting how often Google sees these search queries, it can estimate how much flu is circulating in different countries and regions around the world. Their results have been published in the journal Nature.

So, according to the world map, now would be a great time to visit Australia, where flu activity is minimal. Throw another shrimp on the barbie.

Posted by Greg Jarboe at 10:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

October 8, 2009

Flu Wars: Microsoft's New H1N1 Site, Google Flu Trends Expands

The good news about companies competing to get information about the flu out to the public is that said public now has abundant resources to stay informed. Microsoft and Google are both promoting their flu sites this week; here's the lowdown:

Microsoft launched an H1N1 site this week. Check it out at http://www.h1n1responsecenter.com. The site helps people assess their symptoms to see if they meet H1N1 criteria.

"If current estimates are correct, many emergency departments across the nation could be overwhelmed by two groups of patients -- those who have H1N1 and those who believe they have H1N1," said Angela Gardner, M.D., FACEP, president of the American College of Emergency Physicians.

"By providing an at-home tool that can help users evaluate whether they need to see a provider before they head to the hospital, we can encourage those who are severely ill or at risk for serious illness to contact their doctor, and reassure everyone else that it is safe and prudent to recover at home," Dr. Arthur Kellermann, professor of emergency medicine and an associate dean of the Emory School of Medicine.

Keeping the infected and uninfected separated is crucial to preventing the spread of the H1N1 flu.

"This will reduce the number of people needlessly exposed to H1N1 influenza in crowded clinic and ER waiting rooms, and allow doctors and nurses to focus their attention on those who need them most."

Meanwhile, Google has expanded their flu trends to include 16 additional countries. The site, which launched last November, is now available in 37 different languages. Google says that it does not use popular terms such as the colloquial "swine flu" because many searchers are simply looking it up due to news headlines. Instead, Google uses CDC data to corroborate flu-related search terms. In countries, such as Mexico, where they do not have historical data, they use seasonality to help determine relevant searches. They've also labeled such efforts as "experimental" since they're based purely on search.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 12:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

September 28, 2009

Google Adds Hot Trends to Search Results

If you happen to be searching one of the 100 hottest trends on Google Search, you'll now see a Google Trends graph of the keyword at the bottom of the search results.

Meanwhile, Google Trends will now only display the top 40 trends instead of the top 100. And they'll get Ryan Seacrest to deliver the results on his radio show. Just kidding.

Despite the reduction of displayed top trends, the new search results feature will still affect the top 100 trends.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 8:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

September 4, 2009

Google Domestic Trends Tracks Search Volume Across Economic Sectors

Google Finance has a new feature that uses Google Trends to show search volume as it relates to economic sectors. The feature is called Google Domestic Trends and it consists of 23 indexes.

Ultimately, Google's goal is to predict economic indicators via search volume data. You can download Google Domestic Trends and use it with your own models.

The 23 indexes are:

Advertising & marketing Air travel Auto buyers Auto financing Automotive Banking & personal finance Business Computers & electronics Construction Credit & lending Durable goods Finance & insurance Furniture Industries Investing Jobs Luxury goods Mortgage Real estate Rental Retail trade Travel Unemployment

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 12:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

May 13, 2009

Google Begins Health Search Experiment

Google has started a search experiment in relation to health-related queries. The experiment involves a survey, which is triggered by a small percentage of random health searches. The survey will ask whether or not a searcher is looking up a topic because s/he or a friend/relative is experiencing those symptoms or conditions.

The results will be used to help Google provide more relevant data related to public health. You may remember last year when Google launched Flu Trends. The tool used search trends to help determine where the flu was rearing its ugly head.

Of course, with the latest public health problem being the swine flu, providing trends wouldn't be so easy. With just around 6,000 cases worldwide, but millions of people talking about (and likely searching for) the swine flu, it would be far more difficult to provide a Swine Flu Trends.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 12:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

May 7, 2009

Google Trends Releases Embeddable Widget

Google Trends has released an embeddable widget that you can place on your website. The annoying thing is that you can't set what terms you want to appear on the widget. So, I'm stuck copying and pasting code featuring the default terms, which today are the top four contestants on American Idol (which was reduced to three last night), when I'd rather compare teams who made the playoffs in the NHL!

Still, users, if they know what the heck they're doing, can click the "edit" button next to the terms and enter their own terms to compare. Try it for yourself below:

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 1:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

December 31, 2008

Will Google Track the Stomach Bug Like It Did the Flu?

If you missed my posts on Monday, it's because I was up at 3am blowing chunks into the porcelain throne the night before. It takes a lot for me to not blog, even when I'm sick, so you know I was hit with something awful. And no, I wasn't hungover.

Instead, as I later found out, I fell victim to this year's stomach bug. I picked it up at a holiday party here in Ohio, where I am doing the annual visit the in-laws thing. After garnering enough energy by Monday afternoon to Tweet about my ordeal, I learned from the @ replies, that I was not alone.

The stomach bug was not only afflicting others in Ohio, but a search on Google News revealed that it had earlier been spreading in the western part of my home state of North Carolina and throughout the U.S.

I also learned that the British were more likely to call it "norovirus" and that it was spreading like wildfire throughout the UK. (It is also called the "Norwalk virus" which is only completely ironic since I'm in Norwalk, Ohio.)

The stomach bug is not generally deadly, though it gives symptoms that send many to the emergency room. But it's lack of lethal-ness is perhaps the reason why Google has not been officially tracking it like it did the flu.

But oh - what a public service if it did! So, I went to Google Trends to see for myself how "stomach bug" and "norovirus" were, um, trending:

As you can see, the ailment is actually trending lower this year than in previous years, but it is on the rise.

Here are some tips to keep this trending lower:

Prevention Tips from the CDC:

Frequently wash your hands, especially after toilet visits and changing diapers and before eating or preparing food.
Carefully wash fruits and vegetables, and steam oysters before eating them.
Thoroughly clean and disinfect contaminated surfaces immediately after an episode of illness by using a bleach-based household cleaner.
Immediately remove and wash clothing or linens that may be contaminated with virus after an episode of illness (use hot water and soap).
Flush or discard any vomitus and/or stool in the toilet and make sure that the surrounding area is kept clean.

Treatment Tips from the CDC

Get hydrated The vomitting and diarrhea dehydrate you. Drink water, oral rehydration fluids (ORF), or juice. Sports drinks will not work in this case.
Stay away from people You're contagious from the moment you get the bug until 3 days after.
If symptoms persist, see a doctor The stomach bug should go away in 24-48 hours. If it doesn't, get medical attention.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 11:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

July 7, 2008

Does Google Analytics Share Data with Google Trends and Ad Planner?

Google is assuring users of its Analytics product that their data is protected. Apparently, the recent announcements of Google Trends for Websites and Google Ad Planner had some web site owners concerned about how much data sharing was going on among the various offerings.

Brett Crosby from the Google Analytics team went to the blog to allay fears:

Google Analytics doesn't share individual, site-level information with Google Trends for Websites or Google Ad Planner. These products gather data from multiple sources, then check the data against anonymous, aggregate, industry benchmarking data within Google Analytics. This helps Google Trends for Websites and Google Ad Planner calibrate category data and correct for under- or over-reporting in certain verticals. The benchmarking data comes from Google Analytics customers who've chosen to share their data in aggregate.

This isn't the first time fears over data collected by Google Analytics have popped up. But not everyone is worried.

When I spoke with Crosby last month, he told me that for every person who expresses fears over data collection in Analytics, there is another who wants to know why more isn't being done with the data. He told me that Analytics works hard to strike a balance for people of both viewpoints, allowing those who want to share in the hopes of developing deep integrations with other Google products the ability to do so.

Of course, there's only so far you can take integration. Google Analytics does not affect a site's rankings in Google's search results.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 12:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

June 26, 2008

SEW Experts: Can Google Predict the Next President?

A look at Google Trends comparative data can help guide companies in making strategic decisions. In today's Building Brand Equity column, "Can Google Predict the Next President?," Erik Qualman shows how the same can be done in the political world, as McCain and Obama are trying to build up their respective "brands" in the eyes of voters.

» Full story

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

June 23, 2008

Google Trends for Websites Adds to Comparison Sites Confusion

If you want to see how your site is doing compared to the competition, then the new Google Trends for Websites is yet another option to conduct your research. Following the lead of sites like Compete.com and Alexa, Google Trends for Websites allows you to see a graph of traffic to the sites you designate.

But Google Trends for Websites is only adding to the confusion caused by Compete and Alexa. I used all three to compare SearchEngineWatch.com, SearchEngineLand.com, and SEOmoz.org, three of the leading search blogs. I got three very different graphs. Check out these screenshots.

With all three, there are definite seasonal dips. But these graphs may speak more to the popularity of Google, Alexa and Compete than they do of the websites you may search. Alexa makes the sites look like they've seen traffic decline, and Compete makes the sites look like the traffic has increased, beginning with a big jump last June. Incidentally, almost any site related to internet marketing seems to have a big jump last June on Compete, which was discussed at search marketing conferences and made known to a wider audience.

Furthermore, Google Trends for Websites does not offer numerical values to give you a ballpark figure of how a site is performing. Alexa and Compete do. Still, Google Trends will likely become the most authoritative source for comparison data since Google has access to far more data than Compete or Alexa.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 9:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (7)

June 11, 2008

New Version of Google Trends Released

Recently, changes to Google Trends have been noticed, and today Google is finally announced a new version of the tool on the Official Google blog. The latest version includes a numeric metric dubbed 'relative scaling' and the ability to export trends data.

With relative scaling, the numbers will not provide exact data, but will give you ballpark of how certain terms are trending. Here's how Heej Hwang of the Google Trends team explained relative scaling:

You'll notice a number at the top of the graph as well as on the y-axis of the graph itself. These numbers don't refer to exact search-volume figures. Instead, in the same way that a map might “scale” to a certain size, Google Trends scales the first term you've entered so that its average search volume is 1.00 in the chosen time period. So in the example above, 1.00 is the average search volume of vanilla ice cream from 2004 to present. We can then see a spike in mid-2006 which crosses the 3.00 line, indicating that search traffic is approximately 3 times the average for all years.

The export function offers two options: relative scaling or fixed scaling. Fixed scaling is data scaled to a specific timeline.

Previously, users noticed the removal of the ability to view trends hourly.

What do you think of the new Google Trends? Give us your thoughts in the comments.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 9:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

June 5, 2008

Google Trends Goes Daily; Drops Hourly Updates

For anyone following the Search Zeitgeist, this is a sad day. Google has just changed updates on Google Trends from hourly to daily.

The change is so new, Google hasn't even updated its FAQ on Google Trends:

How does Hot Trends work?

Hot Trends reflects what people are searching for on Google today. Rather than showing the most popular searches overall, which would always be generic terms like "weather," Hot Trends highlights searches that have sudden surges in popularity. Our algorithm analyzes millions of web searches performed on Google and displays those searches that deviate the most from their historic traffic pattern. The algorithm also filters out spam and removes inappropriate material.

For each search, Hot Trends shows related searches, a search-volume graph, and the top cities. We also display news, blog, and web results to help give context about why a search may be appearing on the Hot Trends list today. Hot Trends is updated hourly. You can also choose a date in the past to see what the top Hot Trends for that date were.

It's a shame Google has made this decision. The company shares very little data about searches done on the search engine. Google Trends was the best way to keep abreast of what captured people's imagination in more-or-less real-time.

We hope Google didn't make this change due to our report on glitches in Google Trends or the appearance of spam more frequently in the Google Trends results.

We also hope Google returns Google Trends to an hourly basis before the service comes out of beta.

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 2:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

June 3, 2008

Google Trends KO'd - Up Off the Mat After 15 Hours

UPDATE: Google Trends is back up and running. We offer our sincere apologies since the #1 search today is: "what to do if inside of girl gets wet."

We sincerely hope that search is spam. We're confident it has nothing to do with the #4 hottest search: Brigitte Bardot.

It's Groundhog Day today at Google Trends. When everyone woke up this morning and checked the hottest stories in Google Labs' Google Trends service, nothing had changed.

As of publication, none of the fastest rising search terms has changed since yesterday.

Bo Diddley died ... yesterday.

Sandro Kopp made the news (yesterday) as actress Tilda Swinton's boyfriend in her open marriage.

Yesterday it was alleged in a Vanity Fair article that former President Bill Clinton had an affair with actress Gina Gershon (Bound, Showgirls), even though most people spelled her name "Gerson" when searching for who she is.

Frasier star Kelsey Grammer? Had a mild heart attack (yesterday).

The FlavorChase sweepstakes somehow made the Top 10 - even though no media outlets were writing about them.

The Best Life Diet and Skinny Cow fat-free ice cream are yesterday's news; as is "The Bachelor" Aaron Buerge.

Nickelodeon's NickArcade.com/dojo also made the Top 10 without support from the news media, which may indicate that the average age of searchers is much lower than Google has ever revealed.

Today's Hot Trends (USA) 1. bo diddley 2. sandro kopp 3. gina gerson 4. kelsey grammer 5. flavorchase.com 6. skinny cow 7. best life diet 8. the bachelor aaron 9. aaron buerge 10. nickarcade.com/dojo

While this may just be a glitch in the system, we're hoping the real reason the service paused was to clear out the "trend spammers" who somehow manage to get their sites improbably listed.

Google states: "With Hot Trends, you can see a snapshot of what's on the public's collective mind by viewing the fastest-rising searches for different points of time. You can see a list of today's top 100 fastest-rising search queries in the U.S. You can also select a recent date in history to see what the top rising searches were and what the search activity looked like over the course of that day. We update Hot Trends hourly.

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 12:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

February 26, 2008

Hilary Clinton Accused of Obama Turban Warfare in Universal Search

Universal search has changed the course of history. Blended search - the combination of the universal searches for Obama turban photo, Barack Obama news stories, YouTube Obama Girl videos and buzz-worthy blogs have created a political firestorm ignited by Internet search.

Forget the official YouTube debates and lofty and admirable aspirations of Google's Sergey Brin. Welcome to the grim, new Making of the Internet President.

Once again the conservative anti-Clinton Drudge Report blog created an onslaught of Internet searches for the Obama photo - Muslim turban and Somali robes - traditional African dress and not a reflection of Obama's religion.

The New York Post - arguably the best headline writers in the free world - call it "Turban Warfare" and a "Bum Wrap."

That's funnier than Hilary's ill-fated lines mocking Obama - the trademark violation “change you can Xerox” and “Shame on you, Barack Obama" -- one that has surely come back to bite her and her alleged leaking campaign. Comedian, American Express pitchwoman and TV host Ellen DeGeneres appeared via satellite at a Clinton fundraiser on Monday to banter with Hilary. The segment will be aired on DeGeneres' show this week. (A follow up to comedian Tina Fey and her SNL b-word rant.)

Is Obama Photo Worth 1000 Keywords? That's the topic of Search Engine WarGames in politics this week - an in-depth look at how keywords and keyword phrases have shaped the political debate: from "bitch is the new black" to "raisin in the sun;" from former crack cocaine addict and Oliver North (Iran Contra) secretary "fawn hall" to "obama turban" -- politics will never be the same.

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 11:15 AM | Permalink

January 11, 2008

Bitten by Sarah Jessica Parker in Google Checkout

You can buy "Sarah Jessica Parker" but you can't get Bitten by her.

Sarah Jessica Parker (the keyword phrase, not the actress) can be found in Google Checkout Trends. "Bitten by Sarah Jessica Parker?" You're out of luck with Google Labs' new tool.

The revenue for "Sarah Jessica Parker" is, according to Google, "(Price x Quantity Sold) Over Time." Imagine that.

Google Checkout now shares retail revenue trends with anonymized Google Checkout shopping cart sales data.

Tony Ruscoe of Google Blogoscoped posted the news with a big chart showing some product comparison trends.

David Wurtz, Google Checkout product manager, announced the new Google Labs competitive intelligence tool. Google Checkout Trends promises to give insight into products that people are buying and selling online. GCT "aggregates sales data of Google Checkout merchants and charts it in a matter of seconds."

My hunch: Google doesn't have permission from some of the big box and multichannel retailers to include their data. That's bad news for fans of Sex In the City.

So if you've been bitten by the "Bitten by Jessica Parker," bug, take Google Checkout Trends with a grain of salt.

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 12:00 AM | Permalink

September 25, 2007

Google Trends Now Updated Daily

Google has increased the frequency that it updates its Google Trends service, so that trends are now updated daily, instead of monthly. Trends launched in May 2006, and has been updated a few times since then. Most recently, Google added a Hot Trends feature a list of the queries that are being searched on more than they usually are. Google has also made available an RSS feed and iGoogle gadget for Hot Trends, which is updated in "very near to real time."

The tool is vulnerable to the vagaries of Internet fame, as well as offline events or media. Google attempts to explain some of the posts by providing a list of news stories about the keyword. For instance, among the hot trends as I write this are "Daily Oklahoman," a newspaper involved in a well-publicized spat with Oklahoma State football coach Mike Gundy; and "Nikki Sixx," the bassist for 80s hair metal band Motley Crue, who recently wrote a book chronicling his drug use.

For those phrases that defy an easy explanation, Google has created a Hot Trends group to let users add their facts and theories about the trends, such as whether a topic was mentioned on Oprah, or showed up in last night's popular sit-com.

For search marketers, the tool can be used to gauge the interest in certain keywords, as long as they have been queried enough times. It can also give bloggers fodder for their posts, to take advantage of the rise in searches for a given topic.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 11:56 AM | Permalink

May 22, 2007

Google Tracking Hot Trends

Google has been regularly tracking popular searches in the form of the Google Zeitgeist for some time, and added the Google Trends service last year, providing an unfiltered, uncategorized view of popular queries in relation to each other.

Now, Google has introduced a new tool called Hot Trends. "It's a new feature of Google Trends for sharing the the hottest current searches with you in very close to real time," according to the Google Blog post. It's also added a Hot Trends group to help decipher the reasons why some seemingly odd phrases are appearing in Hot Trends.

Hot Trends are not a straight list of most popular searches, but are ranked with a new algorithm: Hot Trends aren't the search terms people look for most often -- those are pretty predictable, like [weather] or [games] or perhaps [myspace]. Yes, [sex] too. Instead, the Hot Trends algorithm analyzes millions of searches to find those that are deviating the most relative to their past traffic. And the outcome is the Hot Trends list.

Google has also updated the Google Trends page to make it easier to break trends down by geographic region, for example. It's also ending its weekly Zeitgeist, but will continue monthly and annual publications.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 1:47 PM | Permalink

October 31, 2006

SnapShot: A Better Version Of Alexa

Compete, Inc. is a B2B firm that conducts consumer-oriented research for large clients. Now the company has released SnapShot, a free tool that anyone can use. It operates like Alexa or Google Trends to display relative traffic, as well as several other metrics such as page views and time on site. Here's an example.

According to Compete, there's a qualitative and quantitative difference between this tool and Google Trends or Alexa, because it leverages their entire 2 million person panel. See Compete's Alexa comparison.

There are a few limitations: it's U.S. audience only, sites with fewer than 10,000 monthly uniques are excluded and you can only compare three sites side by side. But out of the gate it's a much better and more accurate tool than Alexa.

Posted by Greg Sterling at 12:14 PM | Permalink

August 16, 2006

Google Music Trends: See What Google Talkers Are Listening To

Garett Rogers spotted the release of Google Music Trends. The Google Labs has it listed and described as "See what music is popular among Google Talk users." It is basically Google Trends for music, though based on the activity of Google Talkers rather than Google searchers. You can currently filter by music genre, and there is a country filter, but I only see the United States as an option. I am a classic rock fan, so it is cool to see the trends for that genre. As Garett notes, the participate link at the top right, currently does not go anywhere.

Postscript: More on the new music status feature that powers Google Music Trends is covered here: Google Talk Gains Voicemail, Music Status, Photo & File Sharing Features.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 5:09 PM | Permalink

July 31, 2006

Google Trends Launched In China

Philipp Lenssen reports that Google Labs just posted a link to Google Trends China. Google Trends was launched on May 10th and gives users the ability to look at search volume over time by keyword and broken down by other variables, such as regions and language. I would suspect Google Trends in China applies the same or similar filters and censorship that Google China web search applies.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 10:12 AM | Permalink

May 10, 2006

Fun With Google Trends

Danny just posted about Google Trends, a service of Google that shows you search volume trends over time for a keyword or for multiple keywords. I thought it would be fun to ask Google Trends which search engine, of the top four, is the most popular, in terms of search volume. So I queries Google Trends for Google, Yahoo, Ask Jeeves, MSN (keep in mind ask jeeves is now ask.com). I also thought it would be fun to pin Apple vs. Windows vs. Linux. So let's see what Google Trends had to say...

Battle of the Search Engines: Search Volume: What is very interesting to note, is that Yahoo was queried more often at Google Search than Google. Which makes sense, who in their right minds would search on the keyword "Google" at Google? Um, well, I have seen people do it, trust me. So what is really interesting is that people are actually searching on "Google" at Google. While all search engines seem to have an upward slop, in search volume, Ask Jeeves seems to have a downwards slop. So let's trend Ask.com on the list as well, and you will notice that the Ask.com search volume bar hits above the Ask Jeeves search volume bar as soon as Ask Jeeves begins to slope downwards. So based on Google Trends, the most popular search engines, in order of search volume are Yahoo, Google, MSN and Ask (as of April 2006). News Volume: But when you look at Google News search volume things change slightly. Yes, someone at Google News is more likely to search on the the keyword "Google" because the search is totally different in nature. I am not looking to find Google.com at Google News, I am looking to find news items on Google at Google News. So, as you would expect "Google" is has the highest news search volume. Yahoo, MSN and then Ask follow Google. Digging Deeper: What happens when you look at it by city, region or languages, does that change the results? Well, yes! We know Australians are found of Google and Google Trends shows us that Australians are more fond of MSN than Google, but more fond of Google than Yahoo or Ask based on search volume. In India, searchers love Yahoo more than anyone else. From Chile or Turkey, well you gotta have MSN as your favorite search engine. Poor Ask never wins the game but they do pretty well in the United Kingdom. You can also play with cities and languages to see how that makes a difference...

Battle of the Operating Systems: Search Volume: For those that know me, I am an Apple fan - using one right now to write this. Unfortunately, not everyone is like me, well the majority of people are not like me. Search volume on "windows" is way more popular than Apple (and Apple also stands for a fruit!) Guess what, Linux is also more popular than Apple! News Volume: But when it comes to news search volume, Apple has its spikes. For one, Apple is always more searched on than Linux for news search. But there are times where Apple jumps ahead on news search to surpass Windows. Digging Deeper: So what does this mean? Well, obviously, people are more likely to have bugs with Windows OS and Linux OS when compared to Apple. Duh! People are searching for solutions at Google for their problems. Just kidding. The region, language and city breakdown don't really show too much more on this particular query.

You see, this tool can be used for educational purposes, commercial purposes and can also be used for fun.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 3:36 PM | Permalink

Google Trends: Peer Into Google's Database Of Searches

Now live via Google Labs is a new Google Trends service, announced today as part of Google Press Day. The service allows you to tap into Google's database of searches, to determine what's popular. For example, do a trends query on cars, and you can see the volume of queries over time, by city, regions, languages and so on.

Let's take a single search first and go through the motions. A query on ipod gives a chart going back through January 2004, which is as far back as Google Trends data goes. You can see spikes in searches, and these are often labeled with letters that lead to related news items. Google says it is using similar technology to do this as it does with company price charts in Google Finance.

Below the chart, you get some geographical and regional data. For example, you'll see most iPod searches are happening in New York, then in Irvine, then San Francisco, London and so on. That's the city data. Next is a Regional option, which gives you a breakdown by country (iPod searches are big in the UK then the US and Australia). Finally, you can narrow by language (Most searches for iPod are done in English, then Japanese).

Want to narrow in? You can do a variety of things. Using the drop down boxes, you can pick a particular month, such as last month. You can also pick a particular region, like last month just in the United States.

You aren't limited to single words. Enter multiple words by commas to do comparisons, such as google,yahoo,microsoft. That query shows you each term in a different color, and you can then see all the breakdowns for each word, as well. You can do up to five words in total. Want to do multiword queries? There's ways to do that -- check out the help page for more.

Sometimes when you do a search, you'll get something like this message:

Your terms - larry page - do not have enough search volume to show graphs.

What's happening here is that Google's working to help protect search privacy. There's a slight chance someone might enter something like their own name along with something embarrassing or private. Potentially, Google Trends could reveal this information.

My Private Searches Versus Personally Identifiable Searches article explains this issue more, and it's something Google used successfully to argue against handing over query data to the US Department Of Justice. Given this, it needed to put some protections into place. That mechanism is to only show data about queries that happen often.

"Something has to be in the hundreds of times per week for you to see trends," said Marissa Mayer, Google's vice president of search products & user experience, about the service. This is also touched on in the help page on the Google Trends site.

Some things to keep in mind. For example, Mayer cited to me a yankees,red socks comparison. Searches for Yankees are well above the Red Socks, so they must be more popular! Well, it's also a case that there are more people in New York than Boston, so there are more people potentially searching for the Yankees.

(Postscript: So I'm an idiot -- it's Red Sox, of course. And yankees,red sox for 2006 shows Red Sox actually much closer to Yankees. So cop-out time, the point in general remains valid. There are things that can skew the stats in ways you might not expect. For example, if you search for a particular company and you see growth in their name, are they more popular? In 2005, you might think so for Kryptonite. But go broader, you'll see a spike in 2004 associated with the Kryptonite locks-can-be-picked-by-ballpoint-pin-fiasco. That incident might have helped fuel some of the rise in following year -- searches that aren't necessarily reflecting a popular view of the company).

Another caveat. The geographic data is based on IP targeting, which isn't perfect. In particular, people who use AOL are often seen as if they are in Virginia, regardless of their true location.

How about query spam? Google's got a system designed to help filter for this, either if intentionally done or accidentally. For example, if it sees many queries all coming from the same IP address, that might be caught. Similarly, if it sees many queries coming from different cookies, it could be caused by the same person who rejects standing cookies. Each search would generate a new cookie, so potentially the same single person might be seen as different individuals.

"We are savvy to that case and make sure we saw queries from 100 different unique cookies that aren't fresh," she said.

Also, the data isn't filtered or consolidated in the way things happen in Google Zeitgeist or other search data mining tools. In other words, car brings back different results than cars. And if you want to see the dark underbelly of search, you can see in sex,ipod that if Apple sold a sexPod, it would leave iPod in the dust. You can also search for explicit adult terms, should you have the hankering.

Finally, Google rightly warns that this is more a play thing that something you can use for definitive predictions of popularity.

For a different spin on Google Trends, check out Barry's post, Fun With Google Trends. Now that we've warned you not to take the data too seriously, time for some comparisons anyway :)

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 3:26 PM | Permalink

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