Google Insights Tools

Google released another analysis tool recently called Google Insights, which will help you understand interest for search terms over time, specific regions and within specific categories. The graphs they present show numbers between 1 and 100, a metric which is explained in the help text below:

The numbers on the graph reflect how many searches have been done for a particular term, relative to the total number of searches done on Google over time. They dont represent absolute search volume numbers, because the data is normalized and presented on a scale from 0-100; each point on the graph is divided by the highest point, or 100. The numbers next to the search terms above the graph are summaries, or totals.

I searched for web development and noticed some interesting trends. I suppose this should have been obvious to me, but the term is on the decline in general, but still a fairly popular search in our country with a score of 63 (see image below):

However, the search term, while still on the general decline, is relatively on the rise in third-world nations (see image below). Notice that globally, the United States no longer makes the top ten regions for this search term:

On the other hand, the search term blog is (predictably) on the rise, while the term weblog is declining. After all, who says weblog anymore (see images below):

Anyone who is interested in measuring the terms associated with their area of expertise should try out this tool. Notice it allows you to export your search results as a CSV, too.