Thursday, June 18, 2015

Mapping Google Trends


Google has a new Google Trends Datastore, which provides a great source of data for anyone interested in mapping search trends on Google. Key datasets from Google Trends are added to the Datastore each day which can be downloaded in CSV format.

Many of the datasets have a geographically element to them. For example, at the moment you can download a CSV file of '2016 Election Candidates: Search interest by state in last 3 months'. This dataset would allow you to create a map of the United States showing which 2016 election candidates are being searched the most in each U.S. state.

Simon Rogers created a similar map during the recent UK elections. His Election 2015 - Most Searched for Leaders map visualized which of the UK's political leaders had been most searched for on Google in each UK election constituency during the previous 12 months.


Google has also created a nice 3d globe visualization, A World of Change, to show how the world is searching 'climate change'. The map allows you to explore what people are searching for around the world in a number of different climate change related subjects.

You can also click on cities around the world to view the top searches in that city related to any of the listed climate change subjects.

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