Google Trends: An invaluable and entertaining tool for researching...

[Poll_Blind]

...the origin and frequency of searches conducted against the Google search engine database on search terms.

  I came across something really neat the other day. It's called Google Trends and when you put a search term into it it responds NOT with hits on the search term but with a visual breakdown on where, GEOGRAPHICALLY, the most instances of that search term come from. Now there's a bit of guesswork done by Google because Google only knows where the search came from right before hitting Google, itself.

  For instance, and this is an example I can't bring up anymore but the point is valid: If you do a Google Trend search for "how to steal" you'll get a bunch of major American cities on the list but near the top there's an obscure village in the UK. It's because a major internet router is located in that little hamlet, routing traffic from lots of other parts of London, NOT because the 8,000 inhabitants are obsessed with thieving.

  So in that way, the Geographical resolution can be misleading, but usually it's fairly accurate. However, of more interest is the frequency of searches on a particular search term. For instance, Groundhog's day vs. Memorial Day: You can actually SEE where interest ramps up, zeniths and ends. Of course, right around those holidays.

  You can also judge the relative "interest" in particular public figures, such as a comparison between Barak Obama vs. Hillary Clinton.

  Also, Google Trends ties into Google News. So, for instance, if you do a Google Trend for "lynching" you'll see that a spike of interest in 2004 appears to bear an arguable relation to a particular news story and which Google has presented to help you more-easily understand that spike.

  Google does not always provide these tags. For instance, if you Google Trend "bush impeach" you get the trend but no news-flags. If you Google Trend "impeach bush" you do. Think about how you construct your search phrase- it will affect your results.

There you go! Google Trends Have at it, post your findings in this thread (I'd love to know what you gals and guys dig up). Please don't bicker overly about what results you DO get, though- Google Trends does not produce definite truths, just clues. You may want to also check out: More Google Products and Google Labs, very interesting tools to splice, dice, julienne and otherwise manipulate and search.

PB
If you think this is useful, PLEASE RECOMMEND the thread so others can get a chance to view and access this information

[sandnsea]

1. Meriden & Hartford CT

In the top 4 for both Lieberman and Lamont. I don't know the size of those towns, but they look like the people are interested in both candidates. Would be interested in what CT people have to say.

Cool tool. Thanks.

[vireo]

2. Top city for Democractic Underground

is Binghamton, NY (?) with a surge in volume at the last election.

Mike Malloy experienced a recent huge spike in interest, with Portland OR and Madison, WI being the top cities.

[Poll_Blind]

3. Yeah, I ran Malloy through there and was glad to see that spike.

BTW, did you hear him today? ZulchZulu posted a link to listen to him online. I loved hear him ranting about the torture legislation and cutting the Repug callers up!

PB

[vireo]

4. No, I missed that

Heard him subbing for Springer, though, and will listen for him on Nova M.

BTW, check this out:
Your terms - "bill o'reilly" - do not have enough search volume to show graphs.

:rofl:

[dalaigh lllama]

30. and our evil nemesis, free republic, in the Dominican Republic???

Most hits for free republic in Santo Domingo. Well, isn't that interesting...

[Danascot]

31. The Dominican Republic is

a popular destination for older US men to pick up poor young DR males for jolly times on the beach.

[dalaigh lllama]

32. That's what I was thinking

but one of my more more computer literate friends just told me that the server for freeperville is perhaps based in the DR. And here I was thinking Rush's "boys" were multitaskers.

[Poll_Blind]

5. Kick for one more rec! Thx. n/t

PB

[struggle4progress]

6. The Brazilians are apparently the only folk interested in habeas corpus

http://www.google.com/trends?q=habeas+corpus

[Poll_Blind]

7. I got the same result, but then I realized we both spelled it wrong, LOL!

Or, I should say, we used something other than the "American" spelling of it. Here's results for habeus corpus. From doing a shotgun search (putting in a couple), it looks like most people are searching for "torture".

It's interesting how most people search for X as an identifying keyword about a particular topic as opposed to Y. Doing a couple of searches to see which keyword is most popular while still reasonably identifying the subject searched-for uniquely is sort of the trick to getting the best results.

PB

[struggle4progress]

9. *slaps forehead*

Why didn't I think of that?

[Poll_Blind]

24. Sometimes Mondays happen on a Saturday night! n/t

PB

[pnorman]

8. I must be missing something here.

I was looking for an attachment of this feature to my Google toolbar. I could bookmark that URL, but I thought it would be smoother than that.

pnorman

[Poll_Blind]

12. It's still in the experimental stages which is why they might not...

...have it integrated into tools like that. Just a guess.

PB

[Poll_Blind]

10. Telling (?) keyword searches (Warning:may be a bit offensive)

Being able to find out (generally, anyway) the geographical origin of certain search words I couldn't resist typing in certain words to see which American cities (or other countries) typed them the most. Warning, I'm sure some of these search words are offensive to some. Ye've been warned!

Statutory Rape
The N-word
"Make Meth"
"Assassinate"
"strangling"
"kill wife"
"kill husband"
ricin (a deadly poison)
"How to steal"
liposuction,breast enlargement,facelift
oxycontin
cocaine,marijuana,beer
polygamy
"stole my"
"cheated on"
"sex slave"
"realdoll" (a female mannequin to copulate with)
"mind control"
MKUltra (mind-control experiment conducted by CIA in the 60's)
COINTELPRO
"age of consent"
"suicide"
"depressed"
"anthrax"
Ku Klux Klan
"yeast infection"
"small penis"
"Steorn" (company purporting to have discovered 'free'energy)

And one "nice" one:

"World Peace"

  There were some keywords that I typed in expecting to get a result but didn't. There were some I typed in, expecting nothing to come back but which had much "interest" in them. From the results, I'm staying away from Salt Lake City and Florida entirely.

PB

[madmusic]

13. LOL, around New Year's of 2006

Husbands were in trouble in Sydney, Australia.

[madmusic]

15. "sex slave" is interesting.

Why the sudden attention in 2006?

[Poll_Blind]

16. Strange isn't it? One of the less-disturbing search results was the...

...spike in interest in "real doll" right around the summer/end of summertime. "Oh man, I haven't gotten any action this summer! This was supposed to be the 'Summer of George!' Hrm, maybe I'll check out those RealDolls."

PB

[madmusic]

20. Looks like a Korean obsession, mostly.

Wonder why. Maybe because http://www.bytefarmers.com/log/2006/05/10/korea-unveils-worlds-second-android/">Korea Unveils World’s Second Android. So maybe it's a science story to them.

[madmusic]

11. It would be really cool if...

if we could click on a spike and see what was going on. Why the spike? Did the news come before or after the search spike? Common sense might tell us that people search for more details after learning about something from the news, but maybe sometimes the news follows the public interest and catches up.

Cool toy and thanks for pointing it out.

[johnaries]

14. The ones results with news tabs have them labeled in the graph.

Most of the spikes correspond with a news item. So, you can just click on the corresponding news tag.

[madmusic]

17. It would help if it were more precise.

For research, I mean. If we wanted to study the cause and effect of the media and popular searches, it would have to be more detail.

For example, the "sex slave" spikes in 2006 do not have any news stories with them, but if we could click on the spike and a new page opened with those stories just previous or during the spike, it would be a powerful tool if there were correlations. As it is, it's fun, but not reliable enough for citable research.

Another method is to do a regular Google search for a term and see the number of hits in the upper right corner. That gives us an idea of how "imprinted" the idea/meme/term is in relation to the web when compared to another search term.

EDIT: for example, a standard Google search: Results 1 - 10 of about 1,830,000 for "sex slave"

To narrow it down, Results 1 - 10 of about 255,000 for "sex slave" crime

So including "crime" cuts the pages down to 255,000.

Results 1 - 10 of about 170,000 for "sex slave" criminal cuts it down even more.

Results 1 - 10 of about 313,000 for "sex slave" trade jacks it up again.

Just a way to see what the web is talking about.

[Poll_Blind]

19. By the way, I'm sure that sort of functionality (or the raw data) is...

...available to corporations who "partner" with Google. Marketing-wise, alone, I'm sure they make a killing on selling off raw or partially-processed search trends for advertising purposes. I can only dream of the sort of crunching you could do with an even more feature-rich many-to-many integration between all the Google tools.

PB

[madmusic]

21. Oh, yeah, how else could they afford to buy YouTube for

1.5 BILLION!???

[Poll_Blind]

22. That's EXACTLY what I was thinking just now, Madmusic, heh heh. n/t

PB

[Poll_Blind]

26. Oh, and this trend must've put The Fear into Google.

"google video",youtube

Just trumped 'em.

PB

[johnaries]

40. Hey, email Google! If it's still in Beta I'm sure they'll welcome

all suggestions.

[Poll_Blind]

18. Messianic/End of the world search trends:

"judgement day","end of the world","apocalypse","armageddon"



Freaky, seemingly-regular spike in interest on "judgement day". Strange. The more I use Google Trends, the more I realize it's like a Zen Koan. Likely to produce more questions than answers but definitely stimulating to one's curiosity, none the less.

PB

[madmusic]

23. Interesting, looks like movies are a more powerful force than

Religion. At least on the Web.

[Poll_Blind]

25. Oops, I left out "world war 3". Creepy results:

I know it has to do more with the Republican Meme but still...creepy.

PB

[madmusic]

27. Wow, it is, really creepy.

Spread the meme and get the people to act on it even if only in a search. That has to help imprint it and make it more real. That's a good catch. If it were possible to correlate specific news stories containing "world war 3" that would be a very powerful research tool. Cause (the news) and effect (the search). Implant successful. Compare this:

http://www.google.com/trends/viz?q=world+war+3,+moral+panic&graph=weekly_img&sa=N

and

http://www.google.com/trends/viz?q=world+war+3,+fear+mongering&date=all&geo=all&graph=weekly_img&sa=N

So there was never an equal trend to counteract the "moral panic" or "fear mongering," so the wingnuts can claim victory on that meme.

How do you post the trend images?

[Poll_Blind]

28. Re:How do you post the trend images?

1. Find a trend that's interesting, then hit ALT-PRINT SCREEN (button is usually above the Insert button) to copy it to clipboard.
2. Load MS-PAINT and PASTE the image
3. Select what portion I want to show and go to Edit-->Copy To (and save it as a file)
4. Double click on the saved files (which loads up a free, awesome, pic viewer: InfranView)
5. Save As... (Save as Jpeg at something like 30% so it doesn't take up too much space)
6. Go to www.imageshack.us and upload it. As soon as upload is complete, it gives me a list of URLS to link to the pic. I choose the bottom, direct link
7. Post it in here.

  Whew, that actually sounds like alot of work. I've done it so much it hardly takes me any time at all, maybe 1-2 minutes, per pic.

  I'm trying to include pics so people reading the thread will be able to understand how easy it is to use. It's not often that one gets a chance at such a (relatively) powerful cruncher like this. I would love to see what other DUers would search on. I can only imagine what kind of interesting (and possibly useful) stuff other DUers could uncover if only they knew that such a tool was available.

PB

[madmusic]

38. Thanks, and that explains it.

I thought you were somehow just linking to the images.

And this is indeed a great tool that will be more and more powerful with development.

[hvn_nbr_2]

33. That's really interesting

... because only "judgement day" of the seemingly related terms has that very periodic spike. My first thought was that the time of the year suggests a possible correlation with Easter, and maybe people are thinking about eternity but not doomsday. But the date of Easter varies, and the mid-April spike doesn't vary.

So maybe it's some completely unrelated interpretration of the phrase. Could it somehow be related to April 15, tax day? And I wonder if the more properly spelled "judgment day" would show the same spike pattern. (Yeah, I know I could check it myself but time is short right now.)

[madmusic]

39. If you look at the regions..

A lot, most, of the interest is out of the U.S.A.

[Poll_Blind]

29. More ways to tweak the searching, from Google.

HERE

2. How many terms can I compare? What other functionality is available?

You can compare up to five terms by separating each term with a comma. To compare trend info for "mittens" and "bathing suits," for example, you'd simply enter mittens, bathing suits and click on "Search Trends."

To see how many searches contained either of two terms, just separate those terms with a vertical bar: "|". For example, to determine how many searches contained the terms "mittens" or "gloves," you'd enter mittens | gloves. To compare multi-word terms, use parentheses. To see how many searches were done for either "winter mittens" or "gloves," for instance, enter (winter mittens) | gloves; otherwise, your query will be interpreted to mean all searches for "winter mittens" or "winter gloves."

You can also exclude terms from your search by using the minus sign. To see how many searches contained the term "maps" but not "google," for instance, just enter maps -google.

To restrict your results to only those searches that contain your terms in the specific order you've entered them, put your terms in quotation marks. (By default, Google Trends will show you all searches that contain the terms you entered in any order.)

Note: when you use any of these advanced features -- quotation marks, minus signs, or vertical bars -- Google Trends will only display the search-volume graph. The news portion of the product doesn't support advanced functionality at this time.

Google Trends Forum (at Google)

PB

[Joanne98]

34. Diebold, Canton Ohio spiking after 2004 election

http://www.google.com/trends?q=Diebold

[Joanne98]

35. OBL Denmark has the most hits... strange

http://www.google.com/trends?q=OBL&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all

[Poll_Blind]

41. Three-letter acronyms in Google Trends is likely to result in very...

...unusual responses. Might want to try something more verbose like "osama bin laden" or "bin laden". Osama is a fairly common first name in some parts of the world so searching on just that might also yield less-accurate results.

PB

[Joanne98]

43. thanx

[Jeroen]

44. The cartoons maybe? n/t

[Joanne98]

36. Jesus Lima Peru. that must be where his space ship is landing

when he returns to earth...

http://www.google.com/trends?q=jesus&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all

[Poll_Blind]

42. LOL!

Also, "Jesus" is a very popular baby name in South America.

Still...

PB

[Joanne98]

37. DU

http://www.google.com/trends?q=democratic+underground&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all