Little Known Facts

Time Posted on May 25, 2011 User Andy

Google recently released a tool that allows users to enter a data series and get back search terms that follow a similar pattern. For fun, I entered the number of Memverse users by state to find out which search terms were most correlated. It turns out that the most correlated search term was "trapping magazines" (!).

Continuing on the theme of "You learn something new every day", two other highly correlated search terms were "Harp and Bowl" and "Justin Martyr".

Tag trivia, miscellaneous

10 responses to Little Known Facts


um, that really doesn't make any sense. how do i get it to say ' Elppa says' instead of, 'says:
Elppa'? elppa


hmmm, ok, I've looked at it, and I'm not sure I understand how you "entered the number of memverse users by state"....

Josiah DeGraaf

I don't understand Google correlate at all, Laurel, so I think we're in the same sort of boat..

Dakota Lynch

At least I'm in good company. :) I don't get it, either.


I don't get anything Andy just said! 0.0


I just took the number of Memverse users in each state (as shown on the 'State Leaderboard') and entered it as a data set. Google then looks through all its search terms that people search for (a very very long list) and finds the ones that have a distribution among the states most similar to the distribution of Memverse users.

So, for instance, we have no users in Connecticut and Vermont and more users in Missouri and Ohio. Google then looks for search terms that are commonly entered in Missouri and Ohio and seldom entered in Connecticut and Vermont. (It uses all the states so I'm just simplifying it here.)

The result was that Memverse users tend to come from the same states where people are looking for magazines about trapping, 'harp and bowl' services, and information about Justin Martyr.

Does that make any more sense? Don't skip your daily memorization over this :)

Alex Watt

Elppa - you will need to update your profile (go to Profile -> Profile) and give yourself a name. :)


Thank you, Andy, that makes more sense. I did (mostly) figure out how Google correlate worked -- especially after I allowed a couple more scripts to run.... it *really* didn't make any sense without the maps at the bottom.... :D :D -- but I wasn't sure how you'd entered the variables or how they "correlated".

btw, are there enough of us from Canada for you to consider adding the provinces in addition to the US states in the Leaderboard section?


Thanks, Alex Watt!


I get it.. Lol