Commentary

Thomas Claburn
 

Google Insights Forecasts the Future

Google has enhanced Google Insights for Search, its search term data analysis tool, to help users see into the future.

Google has enhanced Google Insights for Search, its search term data analysis tool, to help users see into the future.Now available in 39 languages, Google Insights for Search includes a new forecasting feature that can extrapolate a search term's future popularity based on its past performance.

For search terms with a lot of historical data, Google Insights for Search can project a likely trend. It's not a perfect prediction of what's to come, but it may be useful in certain circumstances.


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Google has also added an animated map that allows users to see how search query volume changes over time in specific geographic regions.

Graphs generated using Google Insights for Search can be presented on any Web page or iGoogle page using an embeddable gadget. This is particularly use for tracking the ebb and flow of online discussion about a particular topic.

The trend for "Microsoft," for example, doesn't look promising, particularly when compared to "Google."

(Note that the forecast trend -- represented with a broken line when Google Insights for Search is accessed on Google's Web site -- isn't visible on the embedded chart.)


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