• The Wall Street Journal Blog, Wednesday, June 11, 2008 11 AM

Google has taken a big step into the world of market research by allowing users to see the numbers behind the popularity of any given search term in the company's vast database. Users can see the numbers and how they compare to other search terms at Google Trends, and then export the data into a spreadsheet to compare with other data.

It used to be that Google Trends users could type in any search term and get a graph showing how frequently that term showed up relative to other terms, but the numbers were missing. Google has remedied that with today's announcement. The Wall Street Journal uses the Presidential race as an example: in mid-December, searches for "Ron Paul" outnumbered "Barack Obama" by six to one, but now Sen. Obama is outpacing Paul by eight to one.

The data in Google Trends goes back to 2004, and only reveals data on the aggregate numbers of searches, not the searches themselves. Users must be signed into a Google account to use the service.

Read the whole story at The Wall Street Journal Blog »