Google Trends PROPER USE ???

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minim

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Google trends is nonetheless the best tool to use for your keyword research, if you already have a #1 ranking site for a keyword.

After numerous threads on DP and other IM sites I'm hoping to get a clarification as to its correct and proper use! It seems that nobody knows!!

Anyways, here's my problem; Say you perform the search:

read book, exercise muscle

You get that graph; now according to the Google Trends About page that shows both search combinations for both read book and book read and exercise muscle and muscle exercise. However, if you search with "read book" and "exercise muscle" you would get the individual number of searches for that exact phrase!

THE HELL YOU DO!

The volume of searches is nowhere close! So what the hell do these search strings ACTUALLY SHOW ?!?! Also, why do you get a zillion high graph when you search for e? Who the hell searches for e that many times?

So does anyone know how this tool is meant to be used because it doesn't show the volume of searches for what you actually search for...:anon.sml:
 


'e' is a word, in some languages: take a look at the locations at the bottom. Top three are brazil, italy and portugal, where, from memory, 'e' means 'is', or something. So, 'e' is used in a lot of search phrases, presumably.

search for "e" and compare it to "f", which isn't a word (afaik), supports that idea. Also, 'e' comes up by itself in a lot of english words - see the news results: E.Coli, e-mail, people's initials, etc. ...so 'e' comes up a lot in searches of both languages.

G Trends doesn't provide a scale, so everything's relative. Where're you getting your volume numbers from, to claim it's wrong?
 
Skittled said:
'e' is a word, in some languages: take a look at the locations at the bottom. Top three are brazil, italy and portugal, where, from memory, 'e' means 'is', or something. So, 'e' is used in a lot of search phrases, presumably.

search for "e" and compare it to "f", which isn't a word (afaik), supports that idea. Also, 'e' comes up by itself in a lot of english words - see the news results: E.Coli, e-mail, people's initials, etc. ...so 'e' comes up a lot in searches of both languages.

G Trends doesn't provide a scale, so everything's relative. Where're you getting your volume numbers from, to claim it's wrong?
Click to expand...

Just in case you want to know, "e" in Italian is "and", while "è" means "is" :)
 
Didn't know that e is a word; I just picked a random letter.

However, I still can't explain the large difference between using the search with commas and without.
I understand it's a relative tool and that is how I've been using it so far but say I want to see the search competition for the phrase "exercise muscle", not that and "muscle exercise" - what would I type in?

And why is there such a large difference that doesn't add up between a search for exercise muscle and the two "exercise muscle" & "muscle exercise" combined? They should be equal, shouldn't they?
 
(Your terms - "exercise muscle","muscle exercise" - do not have enough search volume to show graphs. ...were you getting that result the other day?)

The results of exercise muscle (unquoted) will NOT equal "exercise muscle"+"muscle exercise" (both quoted), because the unquoted search also counts other queries which don't turn up in the quoted ones.

If the logic of that isn't clear, here's an example. Let's say we ran google trends on 5 searches, each run once:

  1. exercise muscle to make me buff
  2. muscle exercise routine
  3. how do I exercise my bicep muscles
  4. build muscle with exercise
  5. womens' exercise routines to avoid building muscle

"exercise muscle" (quoted) has a frequency of 1 (#1)
"muscle exercise" (quoted) has a frequency of 1 (#2)
exercise muscle has a frequency of 5 (all 1-5 have exercise muscle).

1+1 does not equal 5.

So, prove this and that it can all add up, take a look at this trends search - this is a good example for a few reasons, but I'll not get into that. First, ignore the line graph: it's too complex to consider for these purposes. Instead, look at the bar graphs below it, which break searches down by location. In many of them, if you added the second and third terms (i.e. red + orange) are nearly equal to the first (blue) term, especially outside the US.

minim said:
They should be equal, shouldn't they?
Click to expand...
No, because people are NOT using the exact phrase, "exercise muscle", very much . When I was writing the above example queries, it was VERY DIFFICULT to work out a plausible search query using EXACTLY (i.e. that would turn up in quotes) that phrase. Searchers are using exercise and muscle together in a single search, but not exactly one after the other, which is why it doesn't turn up in "exercise muscle".

Sigh. Can't believe I just went through all that. Does it answer your question?
 
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