Google Insights for Search: Term order is all important!

Unfortunately most poor academics don't have access to the same data as Bill Tancer, instead we generally have to make do with the crumbs from Google and the other search engines. This morning however, I was reminded about how careful we need to be when using the tools the search engines offer us.

Today I was using Google Insights for Search to compare the term cybermetrics and webometrics. Whilst I am part of the Statistical Cybermetrics Research Group, as a group we tend to discuss 'webometrics'. Google Insights for Search clearly shows that whilst there was once a time when cybermetrics ruled supreme, webometrics is now far more popular.

More importantly, however, I also noticed that Iran wasn't highlighted on the map for the term 'webometrics', despite Iran have a (relatively) strong webometrics community.

Basically, because Iran does not appear in the results for 'cybermetrics' (which was my first search term), it is not calculated for 'webometrics'. If I had added the term 'webometrics' first, then the term 'cybermetrics' the map would have looked very different:

The solution would seem to be to include a universal search term first, but those that immediately spring to mind are not necessarily the sort that you would want appearing on a corporate slide-show.