Google Trends is a public web facility of
Google Inc., based on
Google Search,
that shows how often a particular search-term is entered relative to
the total search-volume across various regions of the world, and in
various languages. The horizontal axis of the main graph represents time
(starting from 2004), and the vertical is how often a term is searched
for relative to the total number of searches, globally.
[1]
Below the main graph, popularity is broken down by countries, regions,
cities and language. Note that what Google calls "language", however,
does not display the relative results of searches in different languages
for the same term(s). It only displays the relative combined search
volumes from all countries that share a particular language (see
"flowers" vs "fluers"). It is possible to refine the main graph by
region and time period. On August 5, 2008, Google launched
Google Insights for Search,
a more sophisticated and advanced service displaying search trends
data. On September 27, 2012, Google merged Google Insights for Search
into Google Trends.
[2]
Background
Google Trends also allows the user to compare the volume of searches
between two or more terms. An additional feature of Google Trends is in
its ability to show news related to the search-term overlaid on the
chart, showing how new events affect search popularity.
Originally, Google neglected updating Google Trends on a regular
basis. In March 2007, internet bloggers noticed that Google had not
added new data since November 2006, and Trends was updated within a
week. Google did not update Trends from March until July 30, and only
after it was blogged about, again.
[3] Google now claims to be "updating the information provided by Google Trends daily; Hot Trends is updated hourly."
On August 6, 2008, Google launched a free service called Insights for
Search. Insights for Search is an extension of Google Trends and
although the tool is meant for marketers, it can be utilized by any
user. The tool allows for the tracking of various words and phrases that
are typed into Google’s search-box. The tracking device provided a
more-indepth analysis of results. It also has the ability to categorize
and organize the data, with special attention given to the breakdown of
information by geographical areas.
[4] In 2012, the Insights for Search has been merged into Google Trends with a new interface.
Evidence is provided by
Jeremy Ginsberg et al. that Google Trends data can be used to track influenza-like illness in a population.
[5]
Because the relative frequency of certain queries is highly correlated
with the percentage of physician visits in which a patient presents with
influenza-like symptoms, an estimate of weekly influenza activity can
be reported. Furthermore, it was shown by
Tobias Preis
et al. that there is a correlation between Google Trends data of
company names and transaction volumes of the corresponding stocks on a
weekly time scale.
[6][7]
In April 2012,
Tobias Preis,
Helen Susannah Moat,
H. Eugene Stanley and
Steven R. Bishop
used Google Trends data to demonstrate that Internet users from
countries with a higher per capita gross domestic product (GDP) are more
likely to search for information about the future than information
about the past. The findings, published in the journal
Scientific Reports, suggest there may be a link between online behaviour and real-world economic indicators.
[8][9][10]
The authors of the study examined Google search queries made by
Internet users in 45 different countries in 2010 and calculated the
ratio of the volume of searches for the coming year (‘2011’) to the
volume of searches for the previous year (‘2009’), which they call the
‘future orientation index’. They compared the future orientation index
to the per capita GDP of each country and found a strong tendency for
countries in which Google users enquire more about the future to exhibit
a higher GDP. The results hint that there may potentially be a
relationship between the economic success of a country and the
information-seeking behaviour of its citizens online.
Google Hot Trends
Google Hot Trends is an addition to Google Trends which displays the
top 20 hot, i.e., fastest rising, searches (search-terms) of the past
hour in the United States. This is for searches that have recently
experienced a sudden surge in popularity.
[11]
For each of the search-terms, it provides a 24-hour search-volume graph
as well as blog, news and web search results. Hot Trends has a history
feature for those wishing to browse past hot searches. Hot Trends can be
installed as an
iGoogle Gadget. Hot Trends is also available as an hourly
Atom web feed.
Google Trends for websites
Since 2008 there has been a sub-section of Google Trends which
analyses traffic for websites, rather than traffic for search terms.
This is a similar service to that provided by
Alexa Internet. The Google Trends for Websites became unavaila
ble after the September 27th, 2012 release of the new google trends product[12]
Google Trends API
An API to accompany the Google Trends service was announced by
Marissa Mayer, vice president of search-products at Google. This was announced in 2007, and so far has not been released.
[13]
A few unofficial Google Trends API tools have been released, along
with a wiki detailing them and simple access to Google Trends data.
Implications of data
A group of researchers at Wellesley College examined data from Google
Trends and analyzed how effective a tool it could be in predicting U.S.
Congressional elections in 2008 and 2010. In highly contested races
where data for both candidates were available, the data successfully
predicted the outcome in 33.3% of cases in 2008 and 39% in 2010. The
authors conclude that, compared to the traditional methods of election
forecasting, incumbency and New York Times polls, and even in comparison
with random chance, Google Trends did not prove to be a good predictor
of either the 2008 or 2010 elections.
[14]
in wikipeedia
