Forum Moderators: Robert Charlton & goodroi
+ If I am selling widget1, widget2, widget3 in my country, I would like to see trneds on potential market size based on the line-graph and bar-chart on cities on my country. It would be interesting to know if my present estimates are different from actual trends shown by Google Trends.
+ Going by the line graph, I can very well see/forecast which part of the year offers maximum demand for widget4, that I might want to start selling. That could give me the best time to market.
+ Comparative line-graphs on widget1, widget2, widget3 would give me a fair guess on the comparative demand-potential of each product. Then, I can ask my sales team to correct their focus if actual performance is different from these stats.
What's your take?
Rgds
JLS
[edited by: tedster at 7:50 am (utc) on May 12, 2006]
[edit reason] make link live [/edit]
Let's all pour our ideas on how to use Google Trends ( [google.com...] ) to intelligent use.
What about sending a screendump of their little graphs that contain vague information to their shareholders to ask them if this is what they had in mind when they were sold shares in a forward thinking innovative company that had the search market by the balls because they were actually good (and not the kind of company indulging in facile dot com style marketing excercises with little graphs containing little real information), thereby glossing over the less-easy-to-sell aspects of their operation like 4 month long index updates, a mountain of self-induced spam (adSense), a manipulatable ranking system, and an advertising network with serious issues of click fraud; to name a few.
Was that what you had in mind?
But this will make them more expensive at those times.
I agree with your example. It's not enough data on its own, but the trend charts are another factor in making decisions on what markets are worth an investment of time, and which ones aren't. I think I've found a few surprises in just one quick trial test.
I'm hoping this is just the small start of more diagnostic tools aimed at search metrics.
That would have been much easier to implement and would have provided much more valuable information, so that we as webmasters could tune/synchronize much more efficiently to the needs and habbits of searchers.
> how to use Google Trends
automated requests to regain absolute figures by comparing/analysing the graphs? What a time consuming effort, and how chaotic (= opposite of order). However, no doubt the porn industry will try just that, so I doubt this tool will be available more than a few months.
Meanwhile I will use it for some sporadic tests, but basically will follow google's/business' first law: concentrate on the user/customer. I could do that much better with any such absolute figures, but luckily there's many other fruitful fields.
So far this thing (assuming it is accurate) is terrific. It's offers extremely valuable broad strokes in a second. In the past, unless you ranked first for a term consistently (with the same number of sponsored links above it) trends were hard to be sure of. This thing shows the trends of two terms in comparison to each other, trends in comparing countries, and seasonality. Much of the data I've seen confirms things you could have guessed about based on other things, but it offers a lot more clarity a helluva lot faster.
a)just lost big money on Google's latest stock dive;
b)have seen your SERP rankings plummet, eating into your livelihood; or
c)are still looking for a working traffic estimator for your PPC campaigns
Which one is it? In any case, sorry to hear of your loss.
-Shorebreak
I am #1 for widget1 (I know how much traffic I get); I wonder if I should now expand to widget2 or widget3.
Using google trends I see that, by comparison, widget2 has way more searches than widget1, and widget3 has less searches.
This alone may be not sufficient to take a decision, but it is certainly an importante piece of information.
None of the above, things going well with my stuff. But I find Google's approach quite haphazard, and at odds with its well massaged public image.
Admittedly Trends is probably a bad example of this, but it all smacks of a lack of planning for me. I'd be the first to admit sarcasm is hardly the way to articulate an arguement, but it can be good for the soul.
The plethora of BETA products from a company that does have issues with its central money maker, namely search, seems odd to me. Although maybe I'm a purist. I'm also not the target market (for much of the widgetry that is) so perhaps I'm in a poor position to judge.
I'd also rather see absolute figures for searches rather than trends, which is too vague for me. Obviously Google guard this info, but that would be my preference. Especially so since much of what you deal with with Google can be vague anyway, e.g. the actual benefit of this PR over that, or are .edu backlinks better than .com etc. It would have been nice to get something concrete that minimised speculation for a change.
Regional variations in the words used to search for my subject area - Direct comparison of search volumes for synonyms broken down by region. Some places call it a widget, other countries call it a gadget. Nifty. What a time saver.
Comparison of traffic volumes between between competing travel destinations. Are we seeing a turn down in business due to local factors, or are all destinations going through a broader cycle?
As to absolute numbers in the results. What for? I'd rather know that my thing is ahead/behind or gaining/losing versus the prevailing volumes or competition. The only absolute numbers that mean much to me are sales dollars.
For the thicker part of the long tail. Not that relevant for the travelling industry, I admit, but if you have several suppliers with 250k niche-products in total to choose from, absolute figures might save you a lot of time and research in deciding which to list and elaborate for the web.
Either way, an incomplete experience is stifling to me.
Rgds
JLS
google, yahoo, msn
and the moving graph was quite moving indeed. Of the three Google seems the most recent in gaining popularity .. but yahoo still remains the most popular ... its present point is way above the high-point ever achieved by Google
What to think about Google trends now?
(I have a hunch the database backing trends is incomplete in many respects ... so G-Trneds needs to be taken not just with a pinch of salt .. but a truck-load of salt)
Rgds
JLS
For example, I know how well I do with search-term-1, but was thinking about working on developing a site for search-term-2. You can see if #2 has a higher volume than #1, or less.
If you want to get depressed, you can always, add ,ebay to the end of your query and watch all your keywords drop to a flat line since they are so insignifcant!
- Identifies the markets that refer to items in the languages of neighboring countries.
- Identifies the areas where your brand has higher relative awareness.
Personally, I think it's a great little tool.... sure, you can argue for actual numbers. But, Yahoo's tool isn't valuable for more than "trends" anyway either... their data is corrupted by "Also try:" suggestions that are (how's a nice way to say this....) outdated, to say the least.
Google trends seems to be a good tool..but whenever i use it i just have this "playground tool" feel about it. I think its because it doesnt have any numbers in it, like something quantifiable or explaination on how they get it..unlike the alexa graphs.
But on the other hand its quite a good tool to use when trying to look on certain keywords to market...like if people search more on the plural term or the singular term...it gives you and idea (a vague idea, for me) on where the large search goes on and on what time of the year!]
Its a great tool but you cant fully rely on it..:D
