Google Insights - Downward Trends

[irldonalb]

Hi,

Has anyone else noticed a drop in searches (according to Insights) on large generic phrases over the past few yrs? I.E. Loans, Insurance, Poker, Dating etc.

Is it that web users are more educated and they now start with long tail phrases?

Donal

[tedster]

I remember that a general downward trend was often showing up from the very beginning of Google Insights [webmasterworld.com]. That linked thread has some good discussion about what a downward trend doesn't mean - namely, it doesn't necessarily mean fewer searches!

The graphed data is normalized by the total traffic in any region - so a decline on the graph means a declining SHARE of all possible searches. To show a flat graph, a given keyword would actually need to be increasing in volume -- assuming the total volume of all searches is increasing, and for most areas of the world this has been true.