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New Google Insights: Fact or Fiction? You Tell Me

posted on August 6, 2008


Google has announced the latest iteration in its quest to provide more analytics–Google Insights. Building on the recent updates to Google Trends, Insights offers better filtering, related keywords, keywords with “rising” popularity, and a global heat map.

It’s a smorgasbord of data.

Google claims Google Insights is…

“…a new product designed with the advertiser in mind. It provides more flexibility and functionality for advertisers and marketers to understand search behavior…”

I think it will appeal greatly to those of us that don’t have access to more comprehensive market research–which is probably 99% of us–but I’d caution building your entire marketing campaign around the data provided by Google Insights.

For example, take a look at this data for the keyword “iPhone.”

You tell me. Does you gut instinct make you question that there’s more interest for the iPhone in Trinidad and Tobago than in the United States?

What about this search for “reputation management.”

Apart from Glen Allsopp, I don’t hear much talk about reputation management coming out of South Africa.

What do you think of Google Insights? Go play around with it some and let me know what you think. A valuable market research tool or just eye-candy for when you don’t have anything better to do?

UPDATE: As Danny Sullivan points out, the data is normalized. What does this mean? As Google explains:

Just because two regions show the same percentage for a particular term doesn’t mean that their absolute search volumes are the same. Data from these two regions – with significant differences in search volumes – can be compared equally because the data has been normalized by the total traffic from each respective region. So, we can assume that users in both Fiji and Canada are equally likely to search for the term hotel.

But, but! Regardless of search volume, Google Insights is suggesting that there is more interest for the term “iphone” in Trinidad and Tobago, than the United States–I’m still having a hard time buying that.


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  • Smith

    Hi Andy,

    ORM , or online Reputation Management is alive, well and beating the … out of the competition.

    Have a look at this post on Gottaquirk

    http://www.gottaquirk.com/post/1521/6-tips-online-reputation-managemen t

    and this one

    http://www.gottaquirk.com/post/1522/brandseye-reputation-monitoring-no w-available-for-1-per-month

    **disclosure**

    I don’t work for Quirk – i just love their blog

    Smith

  • http://www.wolf-howl.com graywolf

    WHAT … you mean that hot chick from california who said she was a bikini model that I talked to on the internet last week might not be who she says? You mean people make things up on the internet and the mountains of demographics data google, yahoo and microsoft give us might not be accurate … I think I need to go have a good cry in the corner :-)

    graywolf’s last blog post..Blogher, Pro-Woman or Anti-Man?

  • http://www.jozsoft.com/blog/ Joe Hall

    What I want to know is how many times can Google package the same data in different ways to pass it off as a completely different product? I mean seriously, all of this data is very interesting, but how many different variables and models does the average marketer need? Why doesn’t Google just focus more of its time on improving one product versus like 6. I feel like I need a new folder in my bookmarks just for “Google Tools”.

    Joe Hall’s last blog post..Hitwise data misses the mark when it comes to Real Estate.

  • http://seologia.com.ar Seologia

    Aren’t they just saying that almost every guy in T&T searches for iPhone and not all search volumen in the US goes to that single keyword?

    Seologia’s last blog post..Un poco más acerca de Google Knol

  • http://seologia.com.ar Seologia

    The odd thing is that data doesn’t seem to be some much alike between Region and City view.

    Seologia’s last blog post..Un poco más acerca de Google Knol

  • http://www.marketingpilgrim.com Andy Beal

    @Seologia – yes, they’re saying that, as a percentage of searches per country, more people in T&T search for iphone than the US. And, more people in SA search for “reputation management”–as a percentage–than than the US. I just don’t believe it.

  • http://www.jordankasteler.com/utah-seo-pro-blog/ Utah SEO Pro

    Wow, this is really neat. thanks for pointing this out. i hope it’s at least somewhat accurate.

    Utah SEO Pro’s last blog post..Mobile SEO – SMX Local Mobile 2008 Presentation

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  • http://www.jaankanellis.com Jaan Kanellis

    LOL @ Joe

    Jaan Kanellis’s last blog post..Google Insights for Search Tool, Very Cool

  • http://www.leftthebox.com Samirb

    I agree with you, I always look at Google’s information dubiously. I wouldn’t replace Google Insight with actual market research, however it can be a good place to start.

    Samirb’s last blog post..Two New Social Sites: SocialBrowse and Social Median

  • http://mp3leben.com/ Tiffany

    Maybe Google took the data when most US citizen traelling to T&T and SA :)

  • http://www.poems.md Ashley

    It is good news indeed

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  • http://www.gadgets4nowt.co.uk PS3

    I’m not sure I am dubious Samirb, more cautious. I am the same with ever stats package out there, with the exception of my hosts.

  • http://symbiancorner.blogspot.com Symbian

    Insights site running really slow now.

    Symbian’s last blog post..Nokia Chat – new location based messenger

  • http://doteduguru.com/ Kyle James

    I have to agree with a lot of the comments here. This is good fun data, but it’s nothing you can’t find and I can see the people who use it not using it properly. Great just what we need more people with access to data that they interpret improperly.

    Kyle James’s last blog post..Is Hosted Search Really Ready for Prime Time?

  • http://www.webaddict.co.za rafiq

    Hey Andy. Have you met @brandseye on twitter?

    ORM tweets from Cape Town, South Africa. They even advertise on Glen Allsop’s blog so how did you miss it? http://www.viperchill.com/brandseye.gif

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  • http://www.coastdigital.co.uk/whats-new/blog/ Robin Moore

    The data that Google provides is accurate.

    I have taken the data from Google insight for some high volume phrases that we also run Google PPC on. We run the ads 100% of the time and are always position 1-3 in Google ads.

    I have matched the data over a 6 month period and I can confidently say that the data Google insight produces fits against our PPC data within a 5% error rate.

    Google insight does use a factoring system to reduce the real search volume down to fit onto 0-100 scale. But – the factoring system is not complex.

    We are just finalising our data and will be publishing the results of our findings on our online marketing blog as soon as we can. Give us a couple of hours.

  • http://www.coastdigital.co.uk/whats-new/blog/ Robin Moore

    Our Google insight results are now posted. Please come find our results on the Coast Digital blog.

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