Google Launches Trends

An anonymous reader writes "Google started to offer a new Trends service that allows viewing search term request statistics split up by geographical locations and languages. In short one can use Google trends to figure out what's hot and what's not and perhaps even find cyclic patterns to pick best time to advertise. From my poking around Google trends I have noticed that there appears to be a general declining bias for most search terms that either has to do with the declining popularity of Google (i.e. less folks were using Google for the past two years) or with the declining amount of searches in general (which is highly unlikely)."

Comments

Dumb Pagerank spam.

[Whiney Mac Fanboy]

I have noticed that there appears to be a general declining bias for most search terms that either has to do with the declining popularity of Google....

Dumb. Maybe he's correct, that google popularity is declining, but the examples he gives do not back up his hypothesis.

There's less searches for Ultramax, Trance music, Madonna and Britney Spears than two years ago. Thats because those items are less popular than two years ago.

Oh, and doing a quick search for the author of this 'blog' (which is starting to look suspiciously like a pagerank pusher), I see he has an ecommerce site called ultramax music, that features trance).

So - two of his search items are related to what he's selling! An interesting way to get your name, music & company linked from a high profile website.

Re:Dumb Pagerank spam.

[Cinnimod]

I'm going to have to agree with WMF above, the examples that the journalist provided in that article are not general search terms for target audiences. He also didn't provide statistics. The reader has no way of knowing whether the journalist put in 10 search terms of his choosing and all ten showed a decline, or whether he sat there for days and put in a thousand different search terms (which I highly doubt).

For example, in a search for trends on searches for "porn", the trend is UP. Searches for "video games" have held pretty steady since 2004. I think he may not have been using general search terms. Maybe he just doesn't want to believe his wonderful trance music could possibly be on the decline. ;P

Re:Dumb Pagerank spam.

[kabz]

Yikes !!!

Check out the searches for C++, SQL, Perl and get a load of that decline, though the main source of queries for all three is Bangalore. Ouch !! Incidentally Dallas and Houston make an appearance in the lower ranks.

On a happier note, I predict news soon, from Peru, of a resurgence in the fortunes of the Amiga. AmigaOS forever !!!

Google LAUNCHED Trends

[Anonymous Coward]

Google launched trends in May, so this is old news and a dupe. Nonetheless, here's an interesting trend.

Re:Google LAUNCHED Trends

[JanneM]

Try this search, just to put that into perspective.

Re:Google LAUNCHED Trends

[Anonymous Coward]

And to put THAT into perspective, try this tend.

Re:Google LAUNCHED Trends

[Whiney Mac Fanboy]

And to put that INTO perspective - try this search

(This can go on all day!)

Re:Google LAUNCHED Trends

[Clazzy]

Even better, put THIS into perspective.

general declining bias?

[dmoen]

From my poking around Google trends I have noticed that there appears to be a general declining bias for most search terms that either has to do with the declining popularity of Google (i.e. less folks were using Google for the past two years) or with the declining amount of searches in general (which is highly unlikely)."

I ran my own tests, and I think that the "search volume" axis is relative to the total number of searches on each day, rather than an absolute number. Most of my tests didn't show a declining bias, although I saw that in a few cases. I think the "declining bias" you saw might be caused by an increase in the diversity of search terms. Old search terms never go away, but new search terms are constantly being created as new names and catch phrases enter popular culture.

Doug Moen

Re:general declining bias?

[All Your Name Are Be]

Exactly. from the About Google Trends page (the first question, no less):

1. How does Google Trends work?

Google Trends analyzes a portion of Google web searches to compute how many searches have been done for the terms you enter relative to the total number of searches done on Google over time. We then show you a graph with the results -- our search-volume graph -- plotted on a linear scale.

All this means is that people are using a wider range of search terms. (either from new terms entering general culture or perhaps people are just searching for more than they used to.)

Holy Nation of Pervs, Batman ...

[mstroeck]

... living in the perpetual darkness of Finlands arctic winter for a few months a year sure can make you lonely, but that lonely?

Now we can compare!

[toochoos]

Don't click here: http://www.google.com/trends?q=ubuntu%2Cdebian

Firefox, Opera, ie

[trip11]

I tried out "Firefox, Opera, IE" and was hoping google would be cool enough that I would get a comparison of trafic from each of the browsers. No such luck. Come on all of you Google employies. One of you needs a 20% time project I'm sure. Put in a fun set of 'easter eggs' that catch browser traffic comparisons or platform traffic comparisons, or other specific comparisons for an appropriate search. I'm sure there are more interesting trends than just 'how many times did you search for x'.

Food for thought...

[WindowsIsForArseWipe]

http://www.google.com/trends?q=bomb+making&ctab=1& geo=all&date=all

Re:New trends?

[TopShelf]

This is a service of Slashdot Dupes, which periodically "reminds" you of news stories that happened days, weeks, or months ago.

Next on Slashdot: "Microsoft announces Windows ME"...

CowboyNeal's been hoaxed by a marketer

[E-Sabbath]

Indeed, this isn't a new feature, and it certainly looks like someone has an agenda here. Where are people going, if not to google? And the expected trend of any specific query is to decrease over time as popularity wanes.

One Solid Trend

[xoip]

There is no escaping this one...http://www.google.com/trends?q=porn&ctab=0&g eo=all&date=all

Seasonality

[sveinb]

ice cream, snowboarding

http://www.google.com/trends?q=ice+cream%2C+snowbo arding&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all

Old news

[nascarguy27]

According to this Press Release, Google released Trends on May 10, 2006 along with Google Co-op, Google Desktop 4, and Google Notebook. It appears that the guy who wrote the article just happened to come across Google Trends, put his own website words into it, and IMO he doesn't understand how it works.

Someone call Maslow

[eko33]

Modern culture's hierarchy has changed!

New Maslow

/idle speculation

BlogScope

[lailla123]

There exist many better trendspotting tools, e.g. try BlogScope. For example, compare YouTube and Google Video.

Singular v. plural

[scooter.higher]

Now this is interesting:

Man v. Woman
http://www.google.com/trends?q=man%2C+woman&ctab=0 &geo=all&date=all

Men v. Women
http://www.google.com/trends?q=men%2C+women&ctab=0 &geo=all&date=all

My research

[DrKyle]

My hypothesis has finally been proven! While geeks remain unpopular, pizza and lesbians are steadily gaining in popularity.

Re:An even Scarier Trend

[Harmonious Botch]

But it's hard to separate the wheat from the chaff. So many alleged trends are actually propped up by something else.

http://www.google.com/trends?q=france%2C+paris%2C+ %22paris+hilton%22%2C+%22tour+de+france%22&ctab=1& geo=all&date=all

Re:Snowboarding vs hiking

[shawb]

Exactly. Looking at holiday related terms is very telling Wow... that last one is odd. There's a very telling lack of a peak there... Since july 4th was almost 2 months ago, one would assume that there should be a peak. Either people did not celebrate Independance Day in the US this year, they celebrated in a different way, or google trend's data is at least two months out of date, and therefore useless for trendspotting.