Google trends BBC story - How to use

[thebutler]

Interesting story on the BBC website re Google trends. Also interesting that the BBC is writing about Google trends.

NOTE BBC story relates to adult content.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/west_midlands/4768647.stm

Instead of using that adult term you could use any word. If one city was WAY above others you could create a local focused mini-site.

 

[SpongyBob]

Am I the only one that finds these city stats a bit, well, dubious? At least for really general things like porn searches and the like that are making the news. Google trends might be a useful tool, but I'd question the significance of the localized data for general terms. I mean why is "blog" so big in Lima, Peru?!? But then almost as big in Lille, France?!?

 

[antonis12]

Am I the only one that finds these city stats a bit, well, dubious? At least for really general things like porn searches and the like that are making the news. Google trends might be a useful tool, but I'd question the significance of the localized data for general terms. I mean why is "blog" so big in Lima, Peru?!? But then almost as big in Lille, France?!?

Agree completely. There is no way these are absolute figures, otherwise major metros would always be up there. though google claims otherwise they look like relative figures (e.g. which city searches for blog more relative to other cities, as opposed to which city searches for blog more than any other other city in the world). Or their IP geocoding or sampling is just not working very well...