An examination of Google search trends and thoughts about resulting behaviors
I’ve known about the google trends page for some time. It’s a service google offers as a sort of novelty feature that allows joe-blow to look at what people are searching about and relate that to other search trends.
In general, there isn’t much quantifiable information that can be gained from the graphs, but that isn’t exactly what they are to be used for. The graphs are devoid of any ‘y’ vector. That makes it impossible to determine the number of instances a term was searched. What can be seen is the relation between different search terms.
All of my assumptions are based on the volume charts, and if I use any other assumption I make that clear in the commenting. One major assumption I have made is that in order to show up on the google trends chart the term needs to have a significant volume.
Let us begin. . .
The first comparison I want to take a look at is the trending on ‘anime blog’ and ‘anime fansub’. There are many blogs that do regular reviews and commenting on manga, but I would assume that most blogs do the majority of their posting on anime content. I chose to leave out a ‘manga’ trend because it literally dwarfed the other two terms. It also doesn’t fit into the general category of the other terms.
The point of interest here is that searching for the ‘anime blog’ only popped up at around early 2005. This doesn’t indicate the non-existence of the search term. What it indicates is that the anime blog gained significant notice around that time. Basically, enough people knew about and started actively searching for anime blogs to entice google into logging to search traffic.
Also, notice that across 2005 there is a growing correlation between the two terms, and across 2006 the correlation becomes even more evident in search volume. This seems to indicate to me that at an aggregate level people going to anime blogs are looking for fansub content.
Ever wonder why there are so many per-episode summary/review blogs. The answer would appear to be a supply and demand situation. That appears to be what people are looking for when they go to anime blogs. It brings in the traffic.
There is almost no relationship between ‘anime bittorrent’ and ‘anime download’. This makes complete sense because people who search for ‘anime download’ have no idea how to obtain fansubs. The assumption is that the term ‘download’ is a generic term used by those who are searching for anime content but are not sure exactly how or where to obtain that content.
Bittorrent has engrained itself as the standard method of sharing fansubs. Direct downloads are available from some sources, but torrents are the common method of transfer.
Notice the steady downward progression of the bittorrent search term. In my opinion that indicates that people have now learned about bittorrent. Also, they have learned how to find torrent files for things they wish to download. In particular, many people looking for anime torrents are finding that content soon after making an attempt to search for it on google. It isn’t difficult to find anime torrents anymore.
There also appears to be a jagged decline in the ‘anime download’ search term. In my opinion anime popularity is up. The only conclusion I can draw is that—in general—people are going directly to their sources rather than searching for the content on google.
The ‘hentai’, ‘lolicon’, and ‘anime’ trends really surprised me. Why? All you have to do is look at the graph and the implications are immediately apparent. People who search for “anime” are looking for hentai. I’m using the term ‘hentai’ here to mean ‘anime porn.’ I’m also making the assumption that people searching for ‘hentai’ are searching for ‘anime porn’ and not looking for general perversions.
Lolicon doesn’t rank on this graph to any significance. Notice, it does show up a little after the first quarter of 2004. This indicates a significant search following for the term. It isn’t apparent from the chart but the term ‘lolicon’ is on a steady progression upward.
Finally, it appears that anime was not the cause of the mysterious ‘dildo’ trend of late 2005 and early 2006. No one can explain why there was a surge in dildo search traffic for that period of time.
The mystery persist.
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A more creative person could probably find more interesting trends than I have here. If you have a blog, I encourage you to post something that you find. This type of thing really interest me.
If you don’t have a blog, feel free to leave a link in the comments to the google trend that you find interesting.
Here is the google trend site: http://www.google.com/trends
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Edit: added quotes arount “anime” in sentence ‘People who search for “anime” are looking for hentai.’
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That chart only represents the people looking for anime porn. It does not reflect the number of people seeking anime.
The chart doesn’t use the right terms when trying to compare how many people are looking for anime vs. how many people are looking for hentai, in general (not just the specific terms ‘anime’ vs ‘hentai’). I think a lot of people searching for anime more likely query on a specific show, rather than a broad search for ‘anime.’ If looking for Paradise Kiss images, would you type in ‘anime’ into Google Search or would you type in ‘Paradise Kiss’?
Most looking for hentai aren’t searching for a specific show, they just want as many pictures of hot chicks whatever show/game they come from, so a broad search works for them. The two groups have different search goals, one is specific and one is general.
So while I am agreeing with you that people who enter the search terms ‘hentai’ and ‘anime’ are looking for porn as you suggest. I am saying that the chart doesn’t accurately represent the number of people searching for anime vs. hentai, since most people looking for anime don’t use the term ‘anime’ in their query.
So I don’t agree with your statement that “People who search for anime are looking for hentai.” Rather, it is those looking for hentai also use the word ‘anime’ likely with the additional term ‘porn’ in their search.
Thanks super_rats.
That’s actually what I meant to write. I added quotes around the word “anime” to correct that error. Your elaboration can help other readers understand the chart.
Still, it is more than a little surprising that the volume charts follow each other so closely.
>> “they just want as many pictures of hot chicks whatever show/game they come from.”
Ahh, yes, the ‘ol Danbooru mentality.
Very interesting analysis. I would hazard that people who used to search google for torrents now know to go straight to the tracker sites. It does seem to indicate that fewer people have been searching for anime related items in general, however. New people would still start out with Google.