Google Insights predicts future searches

Google Insights for Search can now forecast likely upcoming search terms

Google has updated its Insights for Search service used by advertisers and marketers to analyse search behaviour.

Insights for Search allows advertisers to see the volume and popularity of specific searches over time just by typing in a search term.

Google has now added a Forecasting Feature that will let users see the search terms that it believes are likely to be used over the course of the next 12 months.

The new capability, announced in a Google Research blog post, will be useful only for terms that have historical trends. For example, the term 'basketball' correlates with annual league events, and search behaviour relating to the term is consistent year on year.

Google is also adding more visualisation to the product with an Animated Map, which lets users see how search queries change over time in different locations.

Google has published a full paper on the new Insights for Search capabilities entitled On the Predictability of Search Trends (PDF).

In another announcement, the firm revealed shortcuts that can be used in Google Apps to allow users to share content more easily with groups.

The Google Apps updates will let users share Calendar, Sites and Video for Business with groups, rather than just individuals. Shared information is protected because the group automatically detects membership changes.

In Google Docs, groups can be permitted to edit or view individual documents, spreadsheets or files.