Dec 11 2008

Google Trends

Category: InternetTeknovis @ 23:16

I spent some time playing with Google Trends today. This is a really intriguing website that lets you see how popular specific search terms are with Google. Additionally, it can be queried to show multiple search terms, and it can be restricted by specific geographic region. However, I am not convinced that the subregions within Ireland are accurate! I really like the way that Google matches the peaks to the related news articles from the same period. It certainly helps to explain the results!

I was playing with this because I read a very interesting article today that claims that the number of searches by Irish users for porn mirrors the number of searches by Irish users for property. Furthermore, one of these terms is increasing in search popularity, and the other is decreasing. Can you guess which?

The full article is Property pron an interesting trend, and the live graph is much easier to read. I really doubt that Kildare is the subregion that searches for the most porn! Also, it is fascinating that the number of searches for porn spikes every year at Christmas. I am not sure how to interpret how Christmas is spent in Kildare!

Last week there was a meat scare in Ireland due to high levels of dioxins (see Recall notice for Irish pork products for more details). It is already possible to see the increased number of searches for “dioxin” in Ireland!

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