justageek - 1:47 pm on May 14, 2007 (gmt 0)

I have heard people talk about it - but is anyone doing anything with it?

Nope. It's outdated, incomplete and a bit expensive.

In 1999 I started using phrase based indexing for a POC product I was working on. What I did then, and now just for fun, was just use the major search engines to get the information to play with.

All you have to do is use your favorite scripting language and scrape the SERP for the phrase you are looking for and do what you wish with it. If you look at the first listing on the 3-gram data you have to buy it says:

ceramics collectables collectibles - 55
ceramics collectables fine - 130

But if you look at the current SERPS you get:

Google:
ceramics collectables collectibles - 129
ceramics collectables fine - 111

MSN:
ceramics collectables collectibles - 23
ceramics collectables fine - 537

Yahoo!:
ceramics collectables collectibles - 75
ceramics collectables fine - 124

Just going by the most recent Google data it says that the order between the phrases has changed compared to what you would buy on the dvds. By looking at the other engines it says that 'ceramics collectables fine' can be found almost 4x as much as what Google currently says is out there and almost 10x what the old data says is out there!

So, use scripts against current data instead of the old data you have to buy. One thing to watch out for though is sometime you don't get a SERP if you hit the engine to fast or to often. Your IP may get banned so just switch to a new IP and continue on.

JAG