Google services ranked by Google Trends

I’ve worked at Google for several years, and I’m often fascinated by the differences in internal perception of our products and external perception.

As a little experiment, I used Google Trends to rank all Google services that I could think of (starting with the “even more” page). It was somewhat difficult because you can only compare up to 5 at a time and the numbers given are relative to only the current search. I know that search volume is not an accurate estimate of popularity for MANY reasons, but I’ve found that its rough conclusions are usually pretty solid.

And so, if you’ve wondered how various Google services stack up against each other, here is the final battle:

  1. youtube
  2. gmail
  3. orkut
  4. google maps
  5. google earth
  6. google translate
  7. google chrome
  8. picasa
  9. blogger
  10. google images
  11. igoogle
  12. google books
  13. google scholar
  14. google news
  15. google docs
  16. google calendar
  17. google finance
  18. google talk
  19. google toolbar
  20. google reader
  21. google code
  22. google desktop
  23. google sites
  24. google groups
  25. google checkout
  26. google labs
  27. sketchup
  28. google trends
  29. google buzz
  30. google pack
  31. google latitude
  32. google health
  33. google moon
  34. google shopping
  35. google maps mobile
  36. google alerts
  37. google bookmarks
  38. laiba (来吧) (China-specific social network)
  39. google my maps
  40. google notebook [cancelled]
  41. google directory
  42. google answers [cancelled]
  43. google 411
  44. picasa web albums
  45. google blog search
  46. google mars
  47. custom search
  48. knol
  49. google goggles
  50. open social
  51. friend connect
  52. sidewiki
  53. google lively [cancelled]
  54. google moderator
  55. google patent search

Comments on methods:

  • I tried to find the most popular version of a product name that was still specific to it. For example, “Google Product Search” is much better known as “Google Shopping” so I used that, and though “Lively” is probably more searched by itself, it’s not distinct enough, so I used “Google Lively”.
  • Some products do not have their names translated internationally, and thus get a boost in this comparison. For example, Orkut is the same name in Brazil and India (its 2 big traffic sources), while Google Maps has a translated name in most countries around the world. This is probably quite a big boost to the untranslated products – mainly Youtube, Gmail, Orkut, Picasa, Blogger, iGoogle.
  • All searches were done around 3 June 2010, only over the last 12 months of searches. I would not be surprised if these ranks change somewhat in the months ahead.
  • Some comparisons were very close and I may have made the wrong call by a spot or two in some places.

If I left off any services that would be interesting, please drop me an email at pbarryatpatrickbarrydotcom.

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