Google's 100 hottest searches excluding you know what

[Mountain Goat]

Here it is:

http://www.google.com/trends/hottrends

What was that quote? Two countries separated by a common language?

It doesn't mean much to me, or is it because I've given up on the soaps? No, I've got it - exam time? Or does everyone get given the same homework each night?

MG

[paolo]

What is this supposed to be a measure of? (Congratulations on 1000 posts by the way).

[vrooje]

Well, whatever ancestry.com is doing to promote their website, I want in.

I'd be interested to see the number of searches performed for each of the 100. But I suppose Google wouldn't want to let us know just how many people use their site every day?

[Mountain Goat]

1000? Good grief. Thanks, Paolo. There could be a rethink at this end.

I'm afraid this is true chocolate kettle territory. For instance, the following search, for Princess Diana

What does this tell us? That the good souls of the 'city' of Thames Ditton were the 2nd keenest admirers of Princess Di? Look at the peaks, though: and Tagalog was the most used language for this search? I know Filipinos have a soft touch, but.....

What's heartbreaking though, in say, 100 years, the true record of what everyone searched for (i.e. this is heavily censored from a North American viewpoint[?]) is lost forever.

And that brings us to the unforgiveable deal Google made with China, and the related censorship. I dread to imagine the agreement with North Korea. And that's two starry-eyed college kids who started the whole thing and who've sold out to the big buck.

Anyway, it's really a waste of time without a vertical scale. What are the figs? Thousands? Millions?

MG

[vrooje]

I suppose it also depends on what you're looking for.

For example, can we learn anything from their trends for holiday rental and vacation rental?

Certainly there's evidence of periodicity, though that's nothing new.

Interestingly, when I search for trends with "holiday rental france" or "vacation rental france," I'm told that there's not enough volume to make a chart.

MG, congratulations on 1001.

[marcus]

'gites france' makes a showing, mostly from users in France.

Comparing the regions
HERE
makes interesting viewing makes us southerners look very unpopular

[la vache!]

I'm happy with that (so are KathyG, Wobert and J&J no doubt)

Maybe people were really doing a search for Britney Spears and got the speling rong.

[paolo]

This tool doesn't look very accurate to me. Or else I am not understanding it. A search for Provence reveals that the 7th and 8th most searched in places are villages I have never heard of, and that there were more searches in Slovenian and Catalan than English.

[Normandy Cow]

Comparing the regions
HERE
makes interesting viewing makes us southerners look very unpopular

I think that this graph is skewed by the fact that it includes ALL searches for the word "Brittany", regardless of the context. If it was possible to limit the results so that they did NOT include searches for Brittany Murphy (singer), Brittany Winner (basketball player), Brittany Kelly (golfer), and of course Brittany(sp.) Spears, then the results would be very different...

more searches in Slovenian and Catalan than English

Does the word/name "provence" mean something completely different in Slovenian or Catalan? i.e. they are not interested in a region of France but something completely unrelated?

[marcus]

I think if the graph included significant numbers of searches for various sports personalities and singers etc it would not follow the same shape as the other regions - the slow rise from Jan to Juy, then the trough later in the year, and the consistency from one year to the next, is pretty much the same for all regions.

So my guess is, it isn't being materially distorted by other searches. I think we just have to accept that everyone loves Brittany the most

Provence does much better with French based searches although Bretagne still leads very slightly.