Make better decisions with new Google Trends scaling
By Matt Jansen
Google Trends has been around for a while now and it has always been a good way to understand which search phrase in any particular set is the most popular. But, now Google just opened the box a sliver further and now provides scaling numbers alongside each statistic.
The data only shows up when you’ve signed in with a Google account and in the browser you’ll see relative scaling, with fixed scaling available in a .csv export. Relative scaling begins by comparing the average search traffic for a key phrase since January 2004 to the search traffic for that key phrase in a particular time period.
So for example a search in Google Trends for kleenex results in a fairly jagged graph (see below) with about 1.75 times the overall average (since January 2004) amount of search traffic at the end of 2006. It’s also possible to restrict the yearly average and trends calculations to a specific year. There are additional examples on the Google blog.
Taking that a step further and adding in a second search phrase creates a good centerpiece of discussion for making intelligent decisions based on search volumes. According to this quick search, which puts kleenex in blue and puffs in red makes it obvious that people are searching for Puffs more than they are Kleenex, by an average of 1.78 times more frequently. Looks like Kleenex brand has an opportunity to market itself more effectively online.
Here are some specifics from Google on how it scales data in relative and fixed modes:
In relative mode, the data is scaled to the average search traffic for your term (represented as 1.0) during the time period you’ve selected. For example, if you entered the term dogs, the graph you’d see would be scaled to the average of all search traffic for dogs from January 2004 to present. But if you chose a specific time frame - say 2006 - the data would then appear relative to the average of all search traffic for dogs in 2006. Then, let’s suppose that you notice a spike in the graph to 3.5; this spike means that traffic is 3.5 times the average for 2006.
In fixed mode, the data is scaled to the average traffic for your term during a fixed point in time (usually January 2004). In our example, 1.0 would be the average traffic of dogs in January 2004. If you chose 2006 as your time frame, you would be comparing data for dogs in 2006 to its data in January 2004. Since the scale basis (1.0) doesn’t change with time, you can look at different time periods, and relate them to each other. (Note: For keywords without a historical record, it may not be possible to establish a fixed scale).
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