Sunday, 12 December 2010

Google Insights for Search

Following up on my previous blog post regarding the popularity of the term "meme", Google has now launched Google Insights for Search.

This new tool lets you do many things that Google trends never did.

Without further ado, here's a static snapshot of the graph for "meme":

...and here's the graph for "memes":

However, now here's the graph for "memetic":

...and here's the graph for "memetics":

While memes are doing well, the science of memes is not. Sad times.

Anyway, Google Insights for Search is also a great new way for tracking meme trends - for those who are interested in that sort of thing.

2 comments:

  1. this beta google utility is pretty much useless. i love how you came to definite conclusions based on a few quick, meaningless searches. more generic searches show a sawtooth pattern to the graph, implying that normalization is applied in the same manner as the infamous "hockey-stick graph" of the global-warming alarmists.

    since internet use is still growing exponentially, i would expect older, more solidly-defined terms such as memetics, chemical engineering, neurology, science, etc., to maintain near-constant absolute search relevance compared to explosive topics-of-the-day that are easily assimilated by the moronic masses. note that a declining relative relevance only means that new searches are being conducted for words other than memetics in addition to the searches already being done for the word memetics.

    the term memetic(s) is not being searched less; it is simply not growing nearly as fast - as a search term - as these other terms you show graphs for. i sincerely hope that you don't actually understand how these graphs work and are just assuming that they show absolute relevance.

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  2. Google Insights for Search has a help page relating to data interpretation - for anyone who wants to assistance in understanding the graphs generated by the tool.

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