Showing posts with label Search engines. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Search engines. Show all posts
Sunday, September 15, 2013
Saturday, January 19, 2013
Genealogy losing popularity?
Wikipedia tells me that "Google Trends is a public web facility of Google Inc., based on Google Search, that shows how often a particular search-term is entered relative to the total search-volume across various regions of the world, and in various languages. The horizontal axis of the main graph represents time (starting from 2004), and the vertical is how often a term is searched for relative to the total number of searches, globally.[1]"
On a whim this morning I put the search term "genealogy" into Google trends to see how popular the term is in relation to other search terms. And what did I find? It appears that since 2004 the term "genealogy" has lost popularity in relation to other search terms on Google. Now I don't think that the pursuit of genealogy is declining; my theory is that people searching for "genealogy" were probably early adopters of the Google search engine.
What do you think?
On a whim this morning I put the search term "genealogy" into Google trends to see how popular the term is in relation to other search terms. And what did I find? It appears that since 2004 the term "genealogy" has lost popularity in relation to other search terms on Google. Now I don't think that the pursuit of genealogy is declining; my theory is that people searching for "genealogy" were probably early adopters of the Google search engine.
What do you think?
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| Google Trends results for search "genealogy"
The Google Trends results page also gives a "Regional interest" map that indicates the areas where searches for the term "genealogy" have been most popular. There are no surprises here as the popularity of the term appears to be strongest in areas where English is the main language.
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Sunday, March 20, 2011
View your Google Search and Web History
Although I have been retired from education for a couple of years I still follow a number of educators via their blogs and on Twitter. I learnt something new from Chris Betcher at Betchablog today that I think is worth sharing with fellow genealogists.
Chris wrote "Many people don't realise it, but if you use Google's search services while signed into your Google account (which you already have if you use Gmail) then your entire search history is automatically archived for you, along with statistics about how often you searched, for what, and when. It will track how many times a day you've Googled something, and even displays a little colour coded calendar to show you your overall search patterns. Some people may find the whole thing a little scary, a little Big Brother-ish maybe."
As I'm not too good at recording every site I visit in a genealogy research log this history will be a useful research management tool for me. As I am usually logged into Google when I use my computer it should keep an accurate record.
To find my personal search history I did a Google search for "my google search history" and was directed to my secure personal history page that gave me information about the searches I had done today and yesterday. At the most simple level your web history is limited to searches. My searches for today are shown in the image below.
There is also an option on the web history page that allows one to "Expand your web history" Clicking on this takes one to a page with this information:
As a test I visited three websites and then went back to view my web history - the three sites were listed with the time I had accessed them.
I will monitor this tool over the next few weeks and, if I decide it's of no use, I will turn it off but I suspect that I will find it a useful tool.
Chris wrote "Many people don't realise it, but if you use Google's search services while signed into your Google account (which you already have if you use Gmail) then your entire search history is automatically archived for you, along with statistics about how often you searched, for what, and when. It will track how many times a day you've Googled something, and even displays a little colour coded calendar to show you your overall search patterns. Some people may find the whole thing a little scary, a little Big Brother-ish maybe."
As I'm not too good at recording every site I visit in a genealogy research log this history will be a useful research management tool for me. As I am usually logged into Google when I use my computer it should keep an accurate record.
To find my personal search history I did a Google search for "my google search history" and was directed to my secure personal history page that gave me information about the searches I had done today and yesterday. At the most simple level your web history is limited to searches. My searches for today are shown in the image below.
A clickable calendar on the page allows one to select any date to see what searches were done on that day.
"All the web sites you visit, at your fingertips.
- View your web activity. You know that great web site you saw online and now can't find? With Web History, you can.
- Search the full text of pages you've visited. Web History allows you to search across the web pages, images, videos and news stories you've viewed.
- Get personalized search results and more. Web History helps deliver search results based on what you've searched for and which sites you've seen."
As a test I visited three websites and then went back to view my web history - the three sites were listed with the time I had accessed them.
I will monitor this tool over the next few weeks and, if I decide it's of no use, I will turn it off but I suspect that I will find it a useful tool.
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Is Mocavo all that it claims to be? ie "The best free genealogy content on the web"
Several tweeps alerted me today to Mocavo, a new search engine for genealogy that on its home page states" The world’s largest free genealogy search engine, Mocavo.com, provides genealogists access to the best free genealogy content on the web including billions of names, dates and places worldwide. Mocavo.com seeks to index and make searchable all of the world’s free genealogy information."
I did other searches on Tierney Dungog, Curry Camden and Tooze Australia with similar results. Searching for Headlam Tasmania brought no results from Mocavo but a wealth of good hits from Google.
Dick Eastman said "I suggest you remember this web site: Mocavo.com. I bet you are going to hear a lot about it in the next few weeks and months. In fact, I'd suggest you try it right now. I've been using the site for a while during its testing and have been very impressed. This thing actually works! Today, Mocavo.com went public and is now available to everyone."
Dick's seal of approval indicates that the resource must be pretty good so I thought I'd give it a whirl by searching for a few of my families. I then did comparison searches on Google. Here is what I found:
Search 1. Pusell Australia - anyone with the name Pusell in Australia is related to me so I entered these terms hoping to find something new.
Mocavo returned thirty-six results from sites
That it returned such a small number of results was disappointing. Some of the information on the Kemp Family Site is in need of updating to reflect recent events. There are no other links to family websites with information on the Pusells.
On the other hand a Google search for Pusell Australia ~genealogy (to narrow down to relevant information) returned many more links including:
I did other searches on Tierney Dungog, Curry Camden and Tooze Australia with similar results. Searching for Headlam Tasmania brought no results from Mocavo but a wealth of good hits from Google.
Search 2 Nelson Piddlehinton - I next tried a search for a branch of the family from a small village in Dorset - Piddlehinton.
Movaco returned 3 results from
genforum.genealogy.com
familytreemaker.genealogy.com
www.archive.org
The information on the family treemaker site has not been updated since 2005 and is not as complete as can be found on other sites.
Relevant results from Google came from these sites:
www.geniaus.net
www.rootschat.com/
www.opcdorset.org/
www.familysearch.org
www.leshaigh.co.uk/
www.thedorsetpage.com
www.southwilts.com
www.mappowder.org.uk and the list goes on....
Movaco returned 3 results from
genforum.genealogy.com
familytreemaker.genealogy.com
www.archive.org
The information on the family treemaker site has not been updated since 2005 and is not as complete as can be found on other sites.
Relevant results from Google came from these sites:
www.geniaus.net
www.rootschat.com/
www.opcdorset.org/
www.familysearch.org
www.leshaigh.co.uk/
www.thedorsetpage.com
www.southwilts.com
www.mappowder.org.uk and the list goes on....
Need I say more?
I also tried some other searches for the UK:, Gowans Hawick and Ball Spotland to discover that Google returned more relevant results than Mocavo.
Search 3. Thinking that Mocavo might have a North American bias I decided to search for "John Gowans" "New York" Mocavo returned two results that were not for my John from
Google also returned results not related to my John Gowans but amongst them were some relevant links from sites including:
My little test of Mocavo is not at all scientific or comprehensive but when a company makes a statement like "Mocavo.com, provides genealogists access to the best free genealogy content on the web" I just have to see for myself. Mocavo might grow into a great resource but, for the moment, it is just one of a number of free resources available to genealogists.
Mocavo needs to amend the claims it makes on its home page, meanwhile I'll stay Google.
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