- Details
- Category: Tech Tech
- Hits: 7938 7938
Ever wonder what the rest of the world has been searching for in the last 30 days? Across all search engines the popularity charts are topped by these search terms: Google, games cheat, my space, eBay, yahoo, play games, elin nordegren, stupid criminals, and baby boy names.
If your interest is focused on what’s been 'Googled' recently, you‘ll want to test out the new Google Trends. Google Trends is a new tool from Google Labs that shows the most popularly searched terms from the beginning of 2004 to now.
Trends charts how often a particular search term is entered relative the total search volume across various regions of the world, and in various languages. The horizontal axis of the Trends graph represents time (starting from some time in 2004), and the vertical axis shows how often a term is searched relative to the total number of searches. [1].
This tool also allows the user to compare the volume of searches between two or more terms, like Yahoo and Google, good and evil [2] or republican and democrat [3].
.
Just type in any popular term and it will show you various statistics relating to how, when, and where that term has been 'Googled'. For example, typing in NASCAR [4] will bring trending of searches for 'NASCAR' over time. It will even bring up news stories that might explain the trends. In this case, publicity about the animated feature film, “Cars” increased search activity for NASCAR.
When previously unknown words, like Sudoku, burst into prominence, Google trends is ready to record the word’s awareness curve. The popular numbers puzzle game Suduko made the US search radar in mid-2005 and has been climbing steadily [5]. Sudoku, sometimes spelled Su Doku, is a placement puzzle, also known as Number Place. The objective of the game is to fill all the blank squares in a game with the correct numbers. There are three very simple rules to follow.
9 by 9 Sudoku Game
1. Every row of 9 numbers must include all digits 1 through 9 in any order
2. Every column of 9 numbers must include all digits 1 through 9 in any order
3. Every 3 by 3 subsection of the 9 by 9 square must include all digits 1 through 9
- Larger Sudoku games (16 by 16) must have numerals 1 through 16 in each row, column and region. The principles are the same whatever the size of the game.
- Every Sudoku game begins with a number of squares already filled in. The difficulty of each game is largely a function of how many squares are filled in.
Interestingly, there are some search keywords that are quite seasonal, like Halloween costumes or summer camps.[6] Another example of seasonal changes is the increase of interest in prom dresses as that season approaches.[7].