Today, we're launching Google Insights for Search, a new product designed with the advertiser in mind. It provides more flexibility and functionality for advertisers and marketers to understand search behavior, and adds some cool new features like a world heat map to graphically display search volume and regional interest.Like Google Trends, you can just type in a search term to see search volume patterns over time, as well as the top related and rising searches. You’ll also have the ability to compare search volume trends across multiple search terms, categories (commonly referred to as verticals), geographic regions, or specific time ranges.
[google.com...]
Now it's time to figure out which one is closer to reality.
The popularity rankings don't match up with the Google Adwords keyword tool all that well.
Yes, I've noticed that too. Not yet sure what it means... except that "popularity" on Insights may not be about absolute numbers, while the numbers in the Keyword tool are about absolute numbers.
I think it's very important to read the FAQ.
[google.com...]
eg...
21. Does a downward line indicate lower search volume?No. A downward trending line doesn't necessarily mean that the absolute traffic for a search term is decreasing - only that its popularity is decreasing....
The Melbourne example that is then described may also apply to this question about regional interest...
Regional Interest...No way the top ten volume searchers are countries in Africa with the US and Europe no where to be found. Similarly with another generic term like cars, the US isn't even in the top 10.
Note what the FAQ say about this...
Just because two regions show the same percentage for a particular search term doesn't mean that their absolute search volumes are the same. Data from these two regions - with significant differences in search volumes - can be compared equally because the data has been normalized by the total traffic from each respective region. So, we can assume that users in both Fiji and Canada are equally likely to search for the search term 'hotel.'
So, as I read it, it's not easy to make regional comparisons about volume with this tool (using the map), only about trends. Mousing over the map gives further comments about search volume.
[edited by: Robert_Charlton at 5:54 pm (utc) on Aug. 6, 2008]
It's been a pain in the neck switching between Trends and Adwords while doing keyword research anyway.
the best part is 'growth relative to category'
especially if you limit your search to a single region.
...
I'd like to see normalization as an option, not as a default. Don't know whether Google could do this on the fly, but the normalization really isn't useful when assessing worldwide priorities.
