WHERE DOES GOOGLE TRENDS DATA COME FROM HOW TO
I saw the bread, obviously, banana bread - I figure people are just buying way too many bananas and have to figure out how to deal with it - how to cut your own hair. Those latter trends have been some of the most interesting to me. And then there are also things like: “How do I cut my own hair?” or “How do I bake bread?” or “How do I keep the kids entertained?” - things we’re all going through.
And then the other side is the fallout from the virus, which are searches around things like loneliness and big emotional issues. On one side, there are people searching for the big issues around the virus: “Is there a vaccine yet?” or “Why does one drug work?” or “What are the symptoms?” - those kinds of big questions. Looking at the searches, right now, I think they almost split into two different categories. But you can get a real sense of how that’s reflected in the way that we search. What’s happened to you isn’t happening to anybody else. I think partly it’s because suddenly you’ve got this giant shared experience, something we’re all going through, and it’s very easy in that environment to feel isolated. Do you think that’s the case? Simon Rogers
That’s because, as we’re spending more time at home and computers mediate our lives with the outside world even more, it seems like we’re getting a better window into what people’s thoughts and questions and fears are during the pandemic. I’ve been paying attention to Google Trends a lot more during coronavirus. “You’re never as honest as you are with your search engine” Rani Molla As soon as something happens, it shows up in search. You get a sense of what people genuinely care about and genuinely want to know - and not just how they’re presenting themselves to the rest of the world. You’re never as honest as you are with your search engine. Because you’re not presenting yourself in a certain way, you’re being honest. It takes you beyond that echo chamber of social media. What advantage does Google Trends have over other datasets? Simon Rogers And it’s ever-changing, and every day it gives you a sense of what people really care about. Google Trends is, I would say, the world’s largest free-access, journalistic data set. So around something like coronavirus, say, that’ll be where we would look at the top questions that somebody will be asking about the virus. And then what we do is try and make that data easier for people to access. It takes a sample of all search - there are billions of searches every day, so it couldn’t possibly measure every one - and basically all of those searches go through this process where we try and work out what they’re really about, which topics they’re about. Google Trends is basically a public tool that anybody can use. Rani Mollaįor those who aren’t familiar, can you explain what Google Trends is? Simon Rogers
This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity. We spoke with Simon Rogers, data editor at Google, who has been putting out a fascinating daily newsletter and coronavirus page from Google Trends data about different trending searches and what they might mean. That’s particularly helpful with the coronavirus, which has consistently dominated search queries in the past few months - even beyond more quotidian standbys like weather, music, and video. This tool lets people compare how popular one search is over time or compared with another, offering insight into what people are curious about. So Google has more insight into our internet searches than any other company.įortunately for the data nerds among us, the company makes those search trends readily available with a website called Google Trends. Google is by far the world’s dominant search engine, fielding about 90 percent of the world’s online queries.
WHERE DOES GOOGLE TRENDS DATA COME FROM FULL
Life during the coronavirus pandemic is full of questions.Īnd for many of those questions, people are turning to the internet and, by extension, to Google.
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