Wikipedia's Viewing Statistics Could Provide Better Web-Trends Data Than Google

An anonymous reader writes: Researchers in Japan have established an almost 75% correlation between Google Trends data on keyword surges and equivalent Wikipedia page views. Since Google provides aggregate web-trends data with little granularity, the 'early ripples' of web interest are far harder to detect via its APIs than by a system that gathers information from Wikipedia's publicy accessible page views data.

Why is this surprising?

[PvtVoid]

Could the data be correlated be because people mostly search for Wikipedia entries using Google? I know that if I'm looking for info on an unfamiliar topic, I search for it on Google, and will usually check the Wikipedia entry if there is one.

I'm not sure why anybody finds the statistic even slightly remarkable. The only thing that's surprising to me is that it's not higher than 75%.

Re:

[wnfJv8eC]

I was going to write this same comment. I often read something via a google search, then look it up for more info on Wikipedia.

Re:Why is this surprising?

[Anonymous Coward]

True, but that's not the point. It doesn't matter how people get to Wikipedia, what matters is that we can get the trend data faster and in more detail than Google releases.

Re:

[TheCarp]

Also because wikipedia is articles with titles that are named for their topic, so a particular piece of information may or may not have its own article or may be buried inside another. If I know the article/topic, I will go to wiki first sometimes, but its easier to hit google where, even if it doesn't hit wikipedia, it may hit something that gives me a better idea what to search for, which will then lead me there.

So, lets say I am talking with someone about the war on terror. Now, I know the US has had inv

Re:

[Bite The Pillow]

It's not surprising when someone else comes up with the idea and does the math.

I did not know about the public stats, so I never would have thought of a 75% effective way to predict what google trends would show.

Obvious in retrospect does not mean anyone is surprised. Especially since "surprising correlation" usually really means "something I didn't previously know."

Few people use words correctly, so don't take them literally.

Re:

[Bite The Pillow]

I'm sorry, I apologise for my recent civility. I assumed that the word "surprising" was used by someone other than you. It's not in the article and it's not in the PDF, so it's something you made up right out of your ass. I should have checked that before I replied. So I'll correct that here, again my apologies for not posting this first.

To start off, this isn't "Surprises for nerds dot com", it's News. And News is things that are new. And I don't remember seeing it here before, so I'm kinda sure it q

Except that

[thisisauniqueid]

Except that probably something like 95% of Wikipedia views come from Google search results. So Google already *has* that click-through data.