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With all of the hullabaloo created over the weekend by Google Chief Economist Hal Varian’s claim that scale is bogus, I found it interesting that Varian today announced that Google has upgraded its Google Insights for Search keyword analytics tool.
Google Insights for Search gauges scaling query volumes to help users spot search trends and show what keywords people around the world are searching for, where they’re searching and when they’re searching.
Today, Insights for Search is available in 39 languages. The tool also boasts a new forecasting feature for queries based on historical trends and search patterns, and animated maps so users can watch how and where search interest changes over time.
Search on the term “Twitter” to see the value culled from Insights for Search, which shows how Twitter rocketed to popularity in 2009.
Insights for Search may help advertisers expand or tune their keyword lists, but bloggers such as myself can use Insights for Search as a great reference tool for our content.
For example, check out the new embedded table feature, which lets bloggers post Insights for Search tables to their blogs without taking screenshots. See the Twitter results:
Moreover, with the embedded table feature, Google is also making it a snap for users to add Insights for Search to their iGoogle home pages. Click on the button in the table above, or grab this gadget.
The common user can use Insights for Search simply to find out what’s hot. Check out how to use the tool in this video:
With all apologies to Californians in the United States, surfing is most popular in Australia, New Zealand and Portugal this summer. However, Honolulu in the United States tops the list for the city where surfing is the most popular search term.