Google trend data for Formula

[Will M]

Alrighty so I pulled this data from Google Trends to get an idea how the interest on Formula has changed over the years.
Fair warning this was not the most scientific study.
The search terms I used were ‘formula sae’, ‘fsae’, and ‘formula student’.
Combi is ‘formula sae’ plus ‘fsae’.
I did not include 2012 in my search.
Without going into too much detail here is what I found.


The first four charts are for the whole world.

Interest in Formula Sae has been declining steadily for the past several years.
http://s17.postimage.org/t2nfd4t4v/Chart1.jpg

However interest in Formula Student has been increasing.

http://s11.postimage.org/ejp0dq143/Chart2.jpg

2007 was a particularly significant year because it was the first time ‘formula student’ was a more popular search term than either ‘formula sae’ or ‘fsae’.

http://s8.postimage.org/blblnsu6t/Chart3.jpg

Green marks the top three for each term, light orange marks countries that scored for all three terms.
Interesting to note that ‘formula sae’ ‘fsae’ match pretty well but ‘formula student’ is completely separate.

http://s11.postimage.org/7vser4hlv/Regions.jpg

The next three are for the USA.

The monthly distribution for ‘combi’ is Very bi-modal. You can see rising interest leading to the spike for the competition in May. Then over the summer it crashes only to pick up in the fall semester.

http://s18.postimage.org/z1a2cfay1/Chart4_USA.jpg

In the USA ‘FSAE’ passed ‘formula sae’ in 2005 and I would predict that ‘formula student’ will do the same in 2012 or 2013.

http://s9.postimage.org/ggltzhl4v/Chart2_USa.jpg


Overall interest in the USA has been semi steady over the past several years.

http://s8.postimage.org/6ynx500d1/USA_stacked.jpg


There is not enough search data do other countries besides the USA but I think this gives a pretty good picture of what is going on.
Any thoughts?

-William

P.S. I would be willing to share my data if you like; it is in excelling 2007.

[Drew Price]

That's actually pretty interesting, thanks for sharing.

[Edward M. Kasprzak]

What does the vertical axis represent in these plots? (It isn't labeled.)

[Will M]

@Drew
You're welcome.

@Dr. Kasprzak,
That is a good question.
Google gives the data for each week as the percentage points of max hits for the whole time period.
i.e. hits(week)/hits(max)*100

So a 'perfect' score for a one year period would be 5,200.
i.e every week for that year has the max number of hits

Each chart could probably be expressed as a percentage of the max of that chart.
Unfortunately it is not as clear cut as hits per year.

-William

[Edward M. Kasprzak]

So, if I understand it correctly, the perfect score of 5200 is based on the sum of hits on all three terms (Formula SAE, FSAE, Formula Student). Right?

If that's true, then these graphs measure the relative useage of the terms, not the absolute number of hits. In that light the trends are not surprising. The rise of Formula Student Germany alone could explain much of the increasing "Formula Student" share of the pie, and that's without including "FSG" in your analysis.

[Will M]

@Dr. Kasprzak,

The 5,200 would be the max score for one week (100) times the weeks in a year (52).

"then these graphs measure the relative usage of the terms"
Yes, that is the key.

"without including "FSG" in your analysis."
Adding FSG would be tricky because, apparently, FSG has several other meanings.
Except the “Florida Society of Association Executives” FSAE only means Formula SAE; and it seems those executives are not so popular on Google.

-William

[Edward M. Kasprzak]

Thanks for the explanations.

[Will M]

Glad to help.

-William