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Analyzing Google Press Releases: More Revenues, Less Search

posted on June 20, 2007


Google Blogoscoped released an automated tool today that looks at word frequency in official press releases from Google over the last 8 years. Among the interesting charts that Philipp Lenssen shares on their blog are the relative popularities of terms like “search,” “revenue,” and “blog” in Google press releases.

What are the trends?

Blogs arrived on Google’s press release radar in 2003 and peaked in 2005. They appear to be on their way back down now.

Revenues are being mentioned more frequently in press releases:
revenues mentioned in google press releases

Of course, this increase could reflect anything from their public status to an actual increased emphasis on revenues. Search, on the other hand, is quite the opposite:
search mentioned in google press releases

I have to admit that it does seem to indicate that Google is moving away from emphasizing search. That doesn’t mean they’re not working on it just as hard, but I think this correctly indicates that there is a lot more going on at Google than search these days.

Like “search,” Yahoo has received fewer mentions in recent years as well. Ask enjoyed a moment in the sun in 2002, but MSN, Microsoft and Live search have never seemed to hold Google’s attention.


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  • http://horisly.blogspot.com horisly

    that’s amazing.

  • http://www.lff.com Fitness guy

    Mr. Yang, Yahoo’s new CEO, stated that “search engines” are not their priority in a recent statement. At least Yahoo is honest about it..

  • http://www.projectparadox.com/ Stephen Ward

    I’d be curious to see the volume of Google press releases for each year. No doubt it’s increased over time, quite likely by a lot. More to the point, they’ve been delving into a lot of new areas in the past few years. It may not be, then, that they’re talking less about search, but that they’re talking more about other things, thus reducing the proportion of press releases mentioning search without reducing the frequency.

  • or

    “I have to admit that it does seem to indicate that Google is moving away from emphasizing search.”

    That’s incorrect. It means that google has mentioned much more things that just search in their *press releases*. However, if you analyzed google’s blog post you would see alot more search posts.

  • Jordan McCollum

    Hence the word “seem” and the sentence that followed it: “That doesn’t mean they’re not working on it just as hard, but I think this correctly indicates that there is a lot more going on at Google than search these days.”

  • Jordan McCollum

    @Steven–I think you’re right, the number of press releases has definitely increased since then, but I would also imagine that they have less to say about search in press releases these days. They don’t have to tout their awesome “searchiness” anymore–and they really do have a lot of other stuff going on that does merit a press release.

    Certainly, though, they still mention search quite a bit. Look at the graphs again, and you’ll see that even at its lowest (this year), search is still mentioned more frequently than revenues (0.59% versus 0.37%).

  • or

    Also, obviously there would be alot more revenue press releases because google is now a public company – so investor conferences, earning calls, etc would be in press releases, not blog posts. I just checked google’s labels on its main blog and it shows that they labeled 95 posts search, and 98 labeled apps, nothing else comes close. I guess that seems to mean that google is emphasizing search and apps. I think the blog posts is a better measure of what’s happening internally. Press releases are for showing off, and making official announcements.

  • http://www.seoforumwatch.com Brittany Thompson

    Very interesting tool they’ve got there… While it might be an indicator of the direction Google is trying to go, Jordan also makes a good point: “They don’t have to tout their awesome ‘searchiness’ anymore–and they really do have a lot of other stuff going on that does merit a press release.”

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