3 ms·

Web hosting a downward trend?

6 points by nreece 18y ago

cperciva 18y ago
Google trends is deceiving. I can only assume that the values shown are a fraction of the total number of searches -- according to Google trends, "linux" and "windows" have declined significantly in the past 4 years, while "firefox" has stayed relatively constant since late 2004 aside from spikes when releases occurred. If I'm right about the plotted values being fractions of the total number of queries, the apparent decline in "web hosting" is probably just an artifact of the internet continuing to expand from the computer-literate to the computer-illiterate: Those of us who would have any reason to care about web hosting are simply being outnumbered.
- nreece 18y ago
  What puzzles me is that on one hand in the last 5 years or so most of these search phrases have been on a downward trend, while Google Search popularity and global penetration has increased over the same duration. Shouldn't nearly every search phrase show an upward trend, due to the increase in search users?
  - cperciva 18y ago
    Shouldn't nearly every search phrase show an upward trend, due to the increase in search users? That was my point -- I'm guessing that Google is normalizing these values by dividing by the total number of searches. So if searches for "web hosting" went from 1 million to 2 million, but those number are 0.002% and 0.001% of the total number of searches respectively, the graph would show a decline.
- mechanical_fish 18y ago
  I think you're right. Google's page on how Trends works is pretty vague: http://www.google.com/intl/en/trends/about.html#10 http://www.google.com/intl/en/trends/about.html#10 ... but it does include this bit: 9. Is the data normalized? All results from Google Trends are normalized... Remember, Google Trends shows users' propensity to search for a certain topic on Google on a relative basis. For example, just because a particular region isn't on the Top Regions list for the term ‘haircut’ doesn't necessarily mean that people there have decided to stage a mass rebellion against society's conventions. It could be that people in that region might not use Google to find a barber, use a different term when doing their searches, or simply search for so many other topics unrelated to haircuts, that searches for ‘haircut’ comprise a small portion of the search volume from that region as compared to other regions. The last phrase of the last sentence is the key: It suggests that Google's "traffic" number is a percentage of the total number of searches. (And then they display that number on a relative scale by dividing it by its own average over the time period, removing it even further from the realm of the concrete.) Ironically, right there on the Google Trends page for "web hosting" is a chart of the absolute rate with which the term has appeared in Google News stories over time. And that rate is increasing. I'm not sure who deserves the most blame here: Google for publishing graphs that are practically useless, or the original poster for failing to read the fine print. I'd tend to blame Google, for making poorly labeled graphs with a limited choice of normalizing methods (i.e. "no choice at all").

6 points by nreece 18y ago

Google trends is deceiving. I can only assume that the values shown are a fraction of the total number of searches -- according to Google trends, "linux" and "windows" have declined significantly in the past 4 years, while "firefox" has stayed relatively constant since late 2004 aside from spikes when releases occurred. If I'm right about the plotted values being fractions of the total number of queries, the apparent decline in "web hosting" is probably just an artifact of the internet continuing to expand from the computer-literate to the computer-illiterate: Those of us who would have any reason to care about web hosting are simply being outnumbered.

nreece 18y ago
What puzzles me is that on one hand in the last 5 years or so most of these search phrases have been on a downward trend, while Google Search popularity and global penetration has increased over the same duration. Shouldn't nearly every search phrase show an upward trend, due to the increase in search users?
- cperciva 18y ago
  Shouldn't nearly every search phrase show an upward trend, due to the increase in search users? That was my point -- I'm guessing that Google is normalizing these values by dividing by the total number of searches. So if searches for "web hosting" went from 1 million to 2 million, but those number are 0.002% and 0.001% of the total number of searches respectively, the graph would show a decline.
mechanical_fish 18y ago
I think you're right. Google's page on how Trends works is pretty vague: http://www.google.com/intl/en/trends/about.html#10 http://www.google.com/intl/en/trends/about.html#10 ... but it does include this bit: 9. Is the data normalized? All results from Google Trends are normalized... Remember, Google Trends shows users' propensity to search for a certain topic on Google on a relative basis. For example, just because a particular region isn't on the Top Regions list for the term ‘haircut’ doesn't necessarily mean that people there have decided to stage a mass rebellion against society's conventions. It could be that people in that region might not use Google to find a barber, use a different term when doing their searches, or simply search for so many other topics unrelated to haircuts, that searches for ‘haircut’ comprise a small portion of the search volume from that region as compared to other regions. The last phrase of the last sentence is the key: It suggests that Google's "traffic" number is a percentage of the total number of searches. (And then they display that number on a relative scale by dividing it by its own average over the time period, removing it even further from the realm of the concrete.) Ironically, right there on the Google Trends page for "web hosting" is a chart of the absolute rate with which the term has appeared in Google News stories over time. And that rate is increasing. I'm not sure who deserves the most blame here: Google for publishing graphs that are practically useless, or the original poster for failing to read the fine print. I'd tend to blame Google, for making poorly labeled graphs with a limited choice of normalizing methods (i.e. "no choice at all").