Google Trends: Search trends updated daily - What you need to know Part 1

Our good friend Google just keeps making our search experience richer, more fulfilling, and above all more and more accurate. In the joy of celebrating the holiday season with online goodies, Google loves to deliver applications such as Google Trends ‘fresh out the lab’ - the proverbial Lab that is; where Google seem to masterpiece the ever-changing landscape of modern search.

Although the technology itself has been around now for a good year and a half, most, if not all ‘Googlers’ will tell you they might have heard of it before, but have not used it! All in all however, alongside bigger sister, the wonderful Google Analytics, make up great strides in online trend/pattern research as well as user/content attribution. Let’s look at the some of the goodies ‘Trends’ can pull and how this is important to the web industry as a whole.

Let’s start off with something that would be beneficial (for whatever reason) for a Web Design/development firm, such as Wiliam Web Site Development to track. If we break it down, the reason to track the following key terms could be for SEO purposes, Career insight (perhaps to find out what jobs people are looking for - and cross reference that to your list of available positions, and many more. That’s besides the point for the moment. Let’s start by comparing two very key terms in the web design industry. Web Design (duh!), and Web 2.0.

In the blue corner we have ‘web design‘ - a tired, but very competitive, ahh, competitor… In the red corner, extra-energetic, but rookie-level ‘web 2.0′. May the best term win!

OK, so we have a winner.. It’s pretty cool to see trends like below that really show you the direction ‘things’ are heading in.

According to our results above; it appears we have a clear differentiators for the trends - notably, time. Obviously, back in the good old Web 1 days - when HTML and JavaScript captured all our attention, the term ‘web design’ was fairly sought after… It was something that was definitely searched for.

However, as time changes and technology progresses to what it is like today, we start to literally notice trends with the terms that used to be higher ranking. It makes lots of sense however that somewhere along the line - at the end of 2005, there was a change in attitude in terms of the-then obscure, yet widely starting to become more and more accepted ‘Web 2.0′ surfaced. Specifically, possibly around the time of September 30, 2005, when Tim O’Reilly (possibly the person to thank/blame for the term) wrote a piece summarizing his view of the all-new Web 2.0.

It’s a simple formula. The Chebian Algorithm for Trend Spikes, or CATS, if you may. Conceptualization = Ideas = Innovation = Ideas = Buzz = Google = Rankings. CIIBGR! Hmm, I’ll stick to my cats!

If you are wondering what the letters represent we will be going through that in Part 2 of this series - but in a nutshell, they show important Google News at that time which could have had a ’cause-and-effect’ on the results themselves.

In summing up this freakishly long blog, I think it’s important to note the strength that tools like this have in the Web industry (and others) alike. If in no other way, I could have easily used the result of this one test to work out solutions to hundreds of ideas I might have running through my head. Does it mean that I should change my keywords now on my meta tags to ‘Web 2.0′ more than ‘Web Design’, considering there is very likely going to be a point in time in the not-too-distant future when Web 2.0 overtakes Web Design as search queries?

All these questions and more will eventually be answered, but for now - we rest knowing that we have another tool that we can use to make sure we are on the road that leads to where we want our online endeavours to head. Drop us a comment let us know what you think of this whole ‘Trend’ thing-a-majig anyway!