Internet Search Queries, and what they tell us

Internet Search Queries, and what they tell us

Recent Contributions of the Internet

WikipediaFree, web-based, collaborative, multilingual encyclopediaOver 18 million articles todayMore accurate than Encyclopedia Britianica1

Donations to Haiti disaster2

Reddit.com: $185,411Visa: $200,000 Wells Fargo: $100,000Sprint: $100,000

Wikileaks.orgMiddle East Revolutions Today

Google beta, an early history

Founded by two Stanford University PhD candidates in 1996

Larry Page, and Sergey Brin

Company first server based in friends garage, Susan Wojcicki, a fellow PhD student.

Hired as first employee

Mission Statement from the onset: “To organize the world‘s information and make it universally accessible and useful.”

Goo·gle; verb:Google officially becomes a verb in 2006

Oxford English dictionary on June 15th 11th edition of the Merriam-Webster dictionary in July

Google; verb: Using the Google search engine to obtain information on the Web.

ie “Did you ‘google’ it?”

Today Google is the primary search engine worldwide3

Google – 78% - market shareMicrosoft Bing – 9% Yahoo Search – 9%Other, Ask, AOL Search, ect – 4%

Google logs over 2 billion searches a day2020, internet users reach 5 billion

Search QueryUS Holidays, 2004-Present, US

Search QueryHow to Treat/Cure/Prevent, 2004-Present, US

Health Category

“flu”2004, US

“flu”2004-Present, US

2009 Swine Flu epidemic

“sexually transmitted disease”2004-present, US

STD Trends by State2004-present, US

• Chlamydia:5

• Missisippi• Alaska• Louisiana• Delaware• Alabama

According to CDC, states with highest reported rates in 2009, in order:

• Gonorrhea:5

• Missisippi• Lousiana• Alabama• Georgia• North Carolina

• Syphilis:5

• Louisiana• Georgia• Arkansas• Alabama• Mississippi

‘How to lose weight’2004-Present, US

Obesity

Google Data “How to lose weight”, 2004-Present:

CDC Data from 20093:

3Figure from http://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/trends.html

“Counting Calories”2004-Present, US

FindingsPreliminary data suggests certain search queries correlate with the characteristics of those doing the searching.

Possible Applications:Data gathering application in research fieldMonitor certain queries for certain outbreaks in the US, or globally Global Google Health?

Sources0 http://www.google.com/trends1 http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v438/n7070/full/438900a.html2 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/15/haiti-relief-corporate-do_n_424710.html3 http://www.seoconsultants.com/search-engines/4 http://www.cdc.gov/std/stats09/default.htm5 http://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/trends.html