Google Trends
Google Trends is a website by Google that analyzes the popularity of top search queries in Google Search across various regions and languages. The website uses graphs to compare the search volume of different queries over time.
Type of site
Search analysis
English, Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, French, and more
May 11, 2006
Active
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.[1]
Search quotas[edit]
Google has incorporated quota limits for Trends searches. This limits the number of search attempts available per user/IP/device. Details of quota limits have not yet been provided, but it may depend on geographical location or browser privacy settings. It has been reported in some cases that this quota is reached very quickly if one is not logged into a Google account before trying to access the Trends service.[60]
Google Hot Trends[edit]
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 various countries. This is for searches that have recently experienced a sudden surge in popularity.[61] 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[edit]
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 unavailable after the September 27, 2012, release of the new Google Trends product.[62]
Google Trends API[edit]
An API to accompany the Google Trends service was announced by Marissa Mayer, then vice president of search-products and user experience at Google. This was announced in 2007, and so far has not been released.[63]
Implications of data[edit]
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. Congress 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.[64] Another group has also explored possible implications for financial markets and suggested possible ways to combine insights from Google Trends with other concepts in technical analysis.[65]