Bizarre Google Trend Search Spike (opens in new tab)

(nikgregory.com)

69 pointsnikgregory15y ago19 comments

19 comments

14 comments · 6 top-level

ryanc15y ago· 4 in thread

Bizarre Google Trend Spikes are traditionally caused by 4chan, it doesn't seem like that is the case here though.

When I first saw the spike it was for XKCD and Penny Arcade, I was expecting it to be internet culture related. I mean at the time XKCD was still growing in readership and to get a colossal jump was a bit weird so I was wondering about a Digg or Reddit boost, then when I noticed it was wider and into more obscure terms I wondered if it was an oddball 4chan event. However I saw it in literally every term I searched, the only ones I couldn't see it in were terms that already had huge random spikes.

So I thought I'd post it here, see if anyone else could figure it out and it looks like a few people have good suggestions - gotta love HN.

mcantor15y ago

Upvoted for germane usage of the terms "traditional" and "4chan" in the same sentence.

lanstein15y ago

Upvoted for germane use of 'germane'.

benmathes15y ago

Goodbye, Hacker News, I miss your useful discussions.

1 more reply

klbarry15y ago· 2 in thread

I don't think google would manually repair the data but rather just fix the part of the data collector that made the mistake.

brk15y ago

Do they even have the ability to repair the data? If information is logged in real-time, and there is no easy way to filter through billions of search query terms to de-dupe (or whatever fix may be required), it might not be possible to correct the dataset.

notyourwork15y ago

Care to elaborate on why you feel they cannot correct the data? I am having trouble understanding.

2 more replies

uptown15y ago· 1 in thread

It happens. According to Google Analytics a website I built had 14.4 billion in revenue one day in November, 2008. While I wish it was true, the bigger problem is that any chart that includes this datapoint is essentially useless since it dwarfs the daily revenue of every other day.

citricsquid15y ago

I think that's your cue to write an ebook!

citricsquid15y ago· 1 in thread

Seems they had an error with how it calculated? The spike exists for everything I can find that existed back then, but the spike seems relative to the total, so maybe they accidentally counted 1 search as 2 or something? Maybe it was an issue with their use of ajax that caused 2 search requests to be fired off to google? Maybe the data isn't wrong, maybe something caused extra searches?

http://www.google.com/trends?q=newgrounds,+reddit,+paul+grah...

pbhjpbhj15y ago

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1937589 look at the drilldown results, does it still show a spike?

fbcocq15y ago

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Trends

"Originally, Google neglected updating Google Trends on a regular basis. In March 2007, internet bloggers noticed that Google had not added new data since November 2006, and Trends was updated within a week. Google did not update Trends from March until July 30, and only after it was blogged about, again.[2] Google now claims to be "updating the information provided by Google Trends daily; Hot Trends is updated hourly."

Google Insights for Search seems to be better for this sort of analysis since it offers regional filtering options and puts the searched term into context.

http://www.google.com/insights/search/#q=xkcd%2Cpenny%20arca...

pbhjpbhj15y ago

If you look at the one year graph for 2007 the spike is missing - http://www.google.com/trends?q=google%2Cyahoo%2Cmicrosoft.... Zoom out to all years and it's there.

Similarly there's no spike if you look at just the US or just the UK.

Perhaps Baidu was down or something but it seems most likely an error on just the compiled graph.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

19 comments

14 comments · 6 top-level

ryanc15y ago· 4 in thread

Bizarre Google Trend Spikes are traditionally caused by 4chan, it doesn't seem like that is the case here though.

nikgregoryOP15y ago

So I thought I'd post it here, see if anyone else could figure it out and it looks like a few people have good suggestions - gotta love HN.

mcantor15y ago

Upvoted for germane usage of the terms "traditional" and "4chan" in the same sentence.

lanstein15y ago

Upvoted for germane use of 'germane'.

benmathes15y ago

Goodbye, Hacker News, I miss your useful discussions.

1 more reply

klbarry15y ago· 2 in thread

I don't think google would manually repair the data but rather just fix the part of the data collector that made the mistake.

brk15y ago

notyourwork15y ago

Care to elaborate on why you feel they cannot correct the data? I am having trouble understanding.

2 more replies

uptown15y ago· 1 in thread

citricsquid15y ago

I think that's your cue to write an ebook!

citricsquid15y ago· 1 in thread

http://www.google.com/trends?q=newgrounds,+reddit,+paul+grah...

pbhjpbhj15y ago

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1937589 look at the drilldown results, does it still show a spike?

fbcocq15y ago

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Trends

Google Insights for Search seems to be better for this sort of analysis since it offers regional filtering options and puts the searched term into context.

http://www.google.com/insights/search/#q=xkcd%2Cpenny%20arca...

pbhjpbhj15y ago

If you look at the one year graph for 2007 the spike is missing - http://www.google.com/trends?q=google%2Cyahoo%2Cmicrosoft.... Zoom out to all years and it's there.

Similarly there's no spike if you look at just the US or just the UK.

Perhaps Baidu was down or something but it seems most likely an error on just the compiled graph.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse