Simon Rogers

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Datajournalist, and Data Editor at Google. Launch editor of Guardian Datablog. Author, Facts are
Jul 1 6 min read

What is Google Trends dataand what

does itmean?
A little more than a year ago, we made Google Trends data available
in real time; and increasingly, its helping people around the world
explore the global reaction to major events.
The vast amount of searches trillions take place every year make
Google Trends one of the worlds largest real time datasets. Examining
what people search for provides a unique perspective on what they
are currently interested in and curious about.
So when a big news story happens, how can you best interpret this
data?

What is Trendsdata?
Trends data is an unbiased sample of our Google search data. Its
anonymized (no one is personally identied), categorized
(determining the topic for a search query) and aggregated (grouped
together). This allows us to measure interest in a particular topic
across search, from around the globe, right down to city-level
geography.
You can do it, too the free data explorer on Google Trends allows
you to search for a particular topic on Google or a specic set of
search terms. Use the tool and you can see search interest in a topic or
search term over time, where its most-searched, or what else people
search for in connection with it.
There are two ways to lter the Trends data: real time and non-real
time. Real time is a random sample of searches from the last seven
days, while non-real time is another random sample of the full Google
dataset that can go back anywhere from 2004 to ~36 hours ago. The
charts will show you either one or the other, but not both together,
because these are two separate random samples. We take a sample of
the trillions of Google searches, because it would otherwise be too
large to process quickly. By sampling our data, we can look at a
dataset representative of all Google searches, while nding insights

that can be processed within minutes of an event happening in the

real world.
Its a unique and powerful dataset, which can complement others, like
demographic data from the census, as shown here in the Washington
Post. As a sample, it gives us a way to analyse what people are
searching for in real time as events unfold. But combining data can be
tricky for instance, it doesnt make sense to compare Google Trends
to other Google datasets, which are measured in dierent ways. For
example, AdWords is meant for insights into monthly and average
search volumes, specically for advertisers, while Google Trends is
designed to dig further into more granular data in real time.

What do the numbersmean?

Google Trends is a powerful tool for storytelling because it can allow
us to explore the magnitude of dierent moments and how people
react to those moments. We can look back and compare dierent
terms against each other, like how dierent sports have ranked since
2004. We also can take the total searches for an event to help
understand its sheer magnitude. When we released our 2015 Year in
Search, we found there were astoundingly over 439 million searches
on Google when Adele came back with Hello.
Whats most useful for storytelling is our normalized Trends data. This
means that when we look at search interest over time for a topic,
were looking at that interest as a proportion of all searches on all
topics on Google at that time and location. When we look at regional
search interest for a topic, were looking at the search interest for that
topic in a given region as a proportion of all searches on all topics on
Google in that same place and time.
For instance, if we look at the Trends around Bernie Sanders, we can
see that Vermont has the highest search interest in the current
senator. This is because of all states, Vermont has the highest
percentage of searches for Sanders out of all searches in that state. If
we had looked at raw data rather than normalized values, we
wouldve seen larger states with higher populations rise to the top of
the ranks.

That normalization is really important: the number of people

searching on Google changes constantly in 2004 search volume was
much smaller than it is today, so raw search numbers wouldnt give
you any way to compare searches then and now. By normalizing our
data, we can make deeper insights: comparing dierent dates,
dierent countries or dierent cities.
The context of our numbers also matters. We index our data to 100,
where 100 is the maximum search interest for the time and location
selected. That means that if we look at search interest in the 2016
elections since the start of 2012, well see that March 2016 had the
highest search interest, with a value of 100.

If we look at search interest in only March 2016, though, we can see

that March 16 has the highest search interest, because weve reindexed our values for just that month.

How do you put the numbers incontext?

Because Google Trends data is presented as an index, we often get the
question: how important is this?
There are a few ways to assess this. The rst is understanding relative
search interest in the topic compared to itself or what we would call
a spike.
As the results came in for the recent EU referendum, Google Trends
showed what people were inherently curious about. Search interest in
the BBCs David Dimblebys tie spiked, and people searching for
getting an Irish passport also surged by 100%. Understanding the
percent increase in a search topic can be a useful way to understand
how much rise in interest there is in a topic. This percent increase is
based on a topics growth in search interest over a distinct period of
time compared to the previous period.
Those spikes are a sudden acceleration of search interest in a topic,
compared to usual search volume. We know these are interesting
because they are often reective of whats going on in the real world
there has been a rise in applications for Irish passports in the UK
since the vote, for instance.
To get a sense of relative size, we can add additional terms, which
helps put that search interest into perspective. For instance, after the
Cleveland Cavaliers won the NBA Championships this year, we saw
the Cavaliers spike past Taylor Swift, a topic that has consistently high
search volume on Google. This helps put into context how large the
volume around the Cavaliers search query was when it spiked.

Weve seen lots of reporters use this approach. In the aftermath of the
Oregon shooting, Hungton Post saw that search interest in gun
control spiked above search interest in gun shop. By looking at this
data in the year leading up to the tragedy, they found that this was a
pattern for other recent shootings in America.

Hu ngton Post

Looking at related searches can also help to understand conditions

that might be driving spikes in Google Trends. During its annual
Person of the Year special, TIME looked back at search interest around
each of the candidates. To understand the context around each spike,
TIME highlighted the related searches to each topic when it spiked in
search to gain a better sense of what drove peoples curiosity at that
moment in time.

Time

Trends data can provide a powerful lens into what Google users are
curious about and how people around the world react to important
events. Were committed to making Trends easier to use, understand
and share. We look forward to continuing the conversation.
I am Data Editor at Googles News Lab. To get the most recent updates
from the team, follow our new Medium publication here.