Google Insights for Search (in fact, fuck it, I’m calling it “Google Insights” from now on because that’s a hella clunky name) is awesome on many levels. If you’re looking for a quick ‘n’ dirty insight into an online market there’s really nothing better out there. Certainly not anything that’s free, anyway.
You can slice the data many ways – looking at verticals like ‘shopping’ or ‘news’, although how accurate this stuff is is really anyone’s guess. One of my favourites though is the regional search, which portends to regional interest. So, I am proud to unveil Britain’s most sexually starved towns:
Congratulations Poplarites who, it seems, are ironically ‘unpoplar’ when it comes to getting the sexyback.
Actually, the real lesson here is nothing more interesting than the fact there is either a big Google datacentre, or a concentration of ISP connections located in Poplar, which probably serves several million Londoners. That Reading, Watford and London itself make the top 10 probably give some indication that you lot down South just aren’t getting no action.
In related news, we’re also a nation of tight-arses (“free sex” being the top query) who wish our arses were looser (“gay” coming in at #10).
On a slightly more serious note, that people would search Google for ‘free sex’ and expect a meaningful answer is, I think, an enormous testament to the way in which search has become a feature of people’s lives. There is almost nothing now where we won’t look to Google for the answers. Whether Google is equipped to supply them or not.
That’s what you think. Coming soon – Google Penis Extension
I knew my Google account would come in for something useful one day!